News, Current Space updates, Rockets,Constellation,Satellites,Space Research,

NASA satellite tastes atoms away from the solar system

2012-02-01T00:54:00.000-08:00

NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, the centerpiece of a $169 million mission map the boundary of the sun's influence, has detected atoms from interstellar space streaming by Earth, finding the material is dissimilar from the chemical make-up of the solar system, scientists announced Tuesday.

The data recommend the area of interstellar space just outside the solar system may be deficient in oxygen compared to its abundance inside the heliosphere, a teardrop-shaped bubble blown out by the energy from the solar wind. The heliosphere's bubble is compressed ahead of the sun's motion like a bow shock in front of a ship, while it stretches behind the solar system similar to a boat's wake.

The heliosphere blocks most hazardous cosmic radiation from reaching Earth.

Researchers published their results in the Astrophysics Journal on Jan. 31. IBEX found 74 oxygen atoms for every 20 neon atoms in the interstellar material, compared with 111 oxygen atoms for every 20 neon atoms within the solar system.

IBEX, launched in October 2008, uses two instruments to identify energetic neutral atoms as they strike the spacecraft. If the imagers are facing the right direction when the particle meets the satellite, the atom registers and the instrument can distinguish its elemental composition.

IBEX is in an orbit stretching 200,000 miles from Earth, placing the craft outside of the planet's magnetic field, a constraint to detect energetic particles streaming in from the outer heliosphere and interstellar space.

Durable NASA Rover Beginning Ninth Year of Mars Work

2012-01-25T00:51:00.000-08:00

Eight years after landing on Mars for what was planned as a three-month mission, NASA's enduring Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is working on what essentially became a new mission five months ago.

Opportunity reached a multi-year driving destination, Endeavour Crater, in August 2011. At Endeavour's rim, it has gained access to geological deposits from an earlier period of Martian history than anything it examined during its first seven years. It also has begun an investigation of the planet's deep interior that takes advantage of staying in one place for the Martian winter.

Opportunity landed in Eagle Crater on Mars on Jan. 25, 2004, Universal Time and EST (Jan. 24, PST), three weeks after its rover twin, Spirit, landed halfway around the planet. In backyard-size Eagle Crater, Opportunity found evidence of an ancient wet environment. The mission met all its goals within the originally planned span of three months. During most of the next four years, it explored successively larger and deeper craters, adding evidence about wet and dry periods from the same era as the Eagle Crater deposits.

In mid-2008, researchers drove Opportunity out of Victoria Crater, half a mile (800 meters) in diameter, and set course for Endeavour Crater, 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter.

"Endeavour is a window further into Mars' past," said Mars Exploration Rover Program Manager John Callas, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

The trek took three years. In a push to finish it, Opportunity drove farther during its eighth year on Mars -- 4.8 miles (7.7 kilometers) -- than in any prior year, bringing its total driving distance to 21.4 miles (34.4 kilometers).

The "Cape York" segment of Endeavour's rim, where Opportunity has been working since August 2011, has already validated the choice of Endeavour as a long-term goal. "It's like starting a new mission, and we hit pay dirt right out of the gate," Callas said.

The first outcrop that Opportunity examined on Cape York differs from any the rover had seen previously. Its high zinc content suggests effects of water. Weeks later, at the edge of Cape York, a bright mineral vein identified as hydrated calcium sulfate provided what the mission's principal investigator, Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., calls "the clearest evidence for liquid water on Mars that we have found in our eight years on the planet."

Mars years last nearly twice as long as Earth years. Entering its ninth Earth year on Mars, Opportunity is also heading into its fifth Martian winter. Its solar panels have accumulated so much dust since Martian winds last cleaned them -- more than in previous winters -- the rover needs to stay on a sun-facing slope to have enough energy to keep active through the winter.

The rover team has not had to use this strategy with Opportunity in past winters, though it did so with Spirit, farther from the equator, for the three Martian winters that Spirit survived. By the beginning of the rovers' fourth Martian winter, drive motors in two of Spirit's six wheels had ceased working, long past their design lifespan. The impaired mobility kept the rover from maneuvering to an energy-favorable slope. Spirit stopped communicating in March 2010.

All six of Opportunity's wheels are still useful for driving, but the rover will stay on an outcrop called "Greeley Haven" until mid-2012 to take advantage of the outcrop's favorable slope and targets of scientific interest during the Martian winter. After the winter, or earlier if wind cleans dust off the solar panels, researchers plan to drive Opportunity in search of clay minerals that a Mars orbiter's observations indicate lie on Endeavour's rim.

Diamond Earrings

Read more

2011 was ninth-warmest year since 1880: NASA

2012-01-19T22:32:00.000-08:00

The global average temperature last year was the ninth-warmest in the modern meteorological record, continuing a trend linked to greenhouse gases that saw nine of the 10 hottest years occurring since the year 2000, NASA scientists said on Thursday.

A separate report from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the average temperature for the United States in 2011 as the 23rd warmest year on record.

The global average surface temperature for 2011 was 0.92 degrees F (0.51 degrees C) warmer than the mid-20th century baseline temperature, researchers at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies said in a statement. The institute's temperature record began in 1880.

The first 11 years of the new century were notably hotter than the middle and late 20th century, according to institute director James Hansen. The only year from the 20th century that was among the top 10 warmest years was 1998.

These high global temperatures come even with the cooling effects of a strong La Nina ocean temperature pattern and low solar activity for the past several years, said Hansen, who has long campaigned against human-spurred climate change.

The NASA statement said the current higher temperatures are largely sustained by increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, especially carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is emitted by various human activities, from coal-fired power plants to fossil-fueled vehicles to human breath.

Current levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere exceed 390 parts per million, compared with 285 ppm in 1880 and 315 by 1960, NASA said.

Last year was also a year of record-breaking climate extremes in the United States, which contributed to 14 weather and climate disasters with economic impact of $1 billion or more each, according to NOAA . This number does not count a pre-Halloween snowstorm in the Northeast, which is still being analyzed.

Diamond studs

Read more

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope Solves Mystery on Source of Supernova in Nearby Galaxy

2012-01-17T05:46:00.000-08:00

Baltimore, MD – Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have solved a longstanding mystery on the type of star, or so-called progenitor, which caused a supernova seen in a nearby galaxy. The finding yields new observational data for pinpointing one of several scenarios that trigger such outbursts.

Based on previous observations from ground-based telescopes, astronomers knew the supernova class, called a Type Ia, created a remnant named SNR 0509-67.5, which lies 170,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy.

Theoretically, this kind of supernova explosion is caused by a star spilling material onto a white dwarf companion, the compact remnant of a normal star, until it sets off one of the most powerful explosions in the universe.

Astronomers failed to find any remnant of the companion star, however, and concluded that the common scenario did not apply in this case, although it is still a viable theory for other Type Ia supernovae.

“We know Hubble has the sensitivity necessary to detect the faintest white dwarf remnants that could have caused such explosions,” said lead investigator Bradley Schaefer of Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge. “The logic here is the same as the famous quote from Sherlock Holmes: ‘when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’”

The cause of SNR 0509-67.5 can be explained best by two tightly orbiting white dwarf stars spiraling closer and closer until they collided and exploded.

For four decades, the search for Type Ia supernovae progenitors has been a key question in astrophysics. The problem has taken on special importance during the last decade with Type Ia supernovae being the premier tools for measuring the accelerating universe.

Type Ia supernovae release tremendous energy, in which the light produced is often brighter than an entire galaxy of stars. The problem has been to identify the type of star system that pushes the white dwarf’s mass over the edge and triggers this type of explosion. Many possibilities have been suggested, but most require that a companion star near the exploding white dwarf be left behind after the explosion.

Therefore, a possible way to distinguish between the various progenitor models has been to look deep in the center of an old supernova remnant to search for the ex-companion star.

In 2010, Schaefer and Ashley Pagnotta of LSU were preparing a proposal to look for any faint ex-companion stars in the center of four supernova remnants in the Large Magellanic Cloud when they discovered the Hubble Space Telescope already had taken the desired image of one of their target remnants, SNR 0509-67.5, for the Hubble Heritage program, which collects images of especially photogenic astronomical targets.

In analyzing the central region, they found it to be completely empty of stars down to the limit of the faintest objects Hubble can detect in the photos. Schaefer suggests the best explanation left is the so-called “double degenerate model” in which two white dwarfs collide.

Diamond Earrings

Read more

NASA’s Chandra Finds Largest Galaxy Cluster in Early Universe

2012-01-12T05:24:00.001-08:00

An exceptional galaxy cluster, the largest seen in the distant universe, has been found using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the National Science Foundation-funded Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in Chile.

Officially known as ACT-CL J0102-4915, the galaxy cluster has been nicknamed “El Gordo” (“the big one” or “the fat one” in Spanish) by the researchers who discovered it. The name, in a nod to the Chilean connection, describes just one of the remarkable qualities of the cluster, which is located more than 7 billion light years from Earth. This large distance means it is being observed at a young age.

“This cluster is the most massive, the hottest, and gives off the most X-rays of any known cluster at this distance or beyond,” said Felipe Menanteau of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., who led the study.

Galaxy clusters, the largest objects in the universe that are held together by gravity, form through the merger of smaller groups or sub-clusters of galaxies. Because the formation process depends on the amount of dark matter and dark energy in the universe, clusters can be used to study these mysterious phenomena.

Dark matter is material that can be inferred to exist through its gravitational effects, but does not emit and absorb detectable amounts of light. Dark energy is a hypothetical form of energy that permeates all space and exerts a negative pressure that causes the universe to expand at an ever-increasing rate.

“Gigantic galaxy clusters like this are just what we were aiming to find,” said team member Jack Hughes, also of Rutgers. “We want to see if we can understand how these extreme objects form using the best models of cosmology that are currently available.”

Although a cluster of El Gordo’s size and distance is extremely rare, it is likely that its formation can be understood in terms of the standard Big Bang model of cosmology. In this model, the universe is composed predominantly of dark matter and dark energy, and began with a Big Bang about 13.7 billion years ago.

The team of scientists found El Gordo using ACT thanks to the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect. In this phenomenon, photons in the cosmic microwave background interact with electrons in the hot gas that pervades these enormous galaxy clusters. The photons acquire energy from this interaction, which distorts the signal from the microwave background in the direction of the clusters. The magnitude of this distortion depends on the density and temperature of the hot electrons and the physical size of the cluster.

X-ray data from Chandra and the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, an 8-meter optical observatory in Chile, show El Gordo is, in fact, the site of two galaxy clusters colliding at several million miles per hour. This and other characteristics make El Gordo akin to the well-known object called the Bullet Cluster, which is located almost 4 billion light years closer to Earth.

Diamond Earrings

NASA's Twin Grail Spacecraft Reunite in Lunar Orbit

2012-01-03T04:18:00.000-08:00

PASADENA, Calif. -- The second of NASA's two Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft has successfully completed its planned main engine burn and is now in lunar orbit. Working together, GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B will study the moon as never before.

"NASA greets the new year with a new mission of exploration," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "The twin GRAIL spacecraft will vastly expand our knowledge of our moon and the evolution of our own planet. We begin this year reminding people around the world that NASA does big, bold things in order to reach for new heights and reveal the unknown."

GRAIL-B achieved lunar orbit at 2:43 p.m. PST (5:43 p.m. EST) today. GRAIL-A successfully completed its burn yesterday at 2 p.m. PST (5 p.m. EST). The insertion maneuvers placed the spacecraft into a near-polar, elliptical orbit with an orbital period of approximately 11.5 hours. Over the coming weeks, the GRAIL team will execute a series of burns with each spacecraft to reduce their orbital period to just under two hours. At the start of the science phase in March 2012, the two GRAILs will be in a near-polar, near-circular orbit with an altitude of about 34 miles (55 kilometers).

During GRAIL's science mission, the two spacecraft will transmit radio signals precisely defining the distance between them. As they fly over areas of greater and lesser gravity caused by visible features such as mountains and craters, and masses hidden beneath the lunar surface, the distance between the two spacecraft will change slightly.

Scientists will translate this information into a high-resolution map of the moon's gravitational field. The data will allow scientists to understand what goes on below the lunar surface. This information will increase knowledge of how Earth and its rocky neighbors in the inner solar system developed into the diverse worlds we see today.

Each spacecraft carries a small camera called GRAIL MoonKAM (Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students) with the sole purpose of education and public outreach. The MoonKAM program is led by Sally Ride, America's first woman in space, and her team at Sally Ride Science in collaboration with undergraduate students at the University of California in San Diego.

GRAIL MoonKAM will engage middle schools across the country in the GRAIL mission and lunar exploration. Thousands of fifth- to eighth-grade students will select target areas on the lunar surface and send requests to the GRAIL MoonKAM Mission Operations Center in San Diego. Photos of the target areas will be sent back by the GRAIL satellites for students to study.

A student contest that began in October 2011 also will choose new names for the spacecraft. The new names are scheduled to be announced in January 2012. Ride and Maria Zuber, the mission's principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, chaired the final round of judging.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the GRAIL mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The GRAIL mission is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft. JPL is a division of the Çalifornia Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Diamond stud earrings

Read more

NASA Conducts Orion Parachute Testing for Orbital Test Flight

2011-12-31T03:31:00.000-08:00

NASA successfully conducted a drop test of the Orion crew vehicle's parachutes high above the Arizona desert Tuesday, Dec. 20, in preparation for its orbital flight test in 2014. Orion will carry astronauts deeper into space than ever before, provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and ensure a safe re-entry and landing.

A C-130 plane dropped the Orion test article from an altitude of 25,000 feet above the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Grounds. Orion's drogue chutes were deployed between 15,000 and 20,000 feet, followed by the pilot parachutes, which then deployed two main landing parachutes. This particular drop test examined how Orion would land under two possible failure scenarios.

Orion's parachutes are designed to open in stages, which is called reefing, to manage the stresses on the parachutes after they are deployed. The reefing stages allow the parachutes to sequentially open, first at 54 percent of the parachutes' full diameter, and then at 73 percent. This test examined how the parachutes would perform if the second part of the sequence was skipped.

Diamond stud earrings

Read more

NASA gives update on mission to moon

2011-12-27T22:27:00.000-08:00

NASA announced Monday that it is entering a new stage of a mission intended to place a pair of probes around Earth’s nearest neighbor and only satellite.

NASA officials said Monday mission controllers are preparing for the twin spaceships, named Grail-A and Grail-B, to enter the moon’s orbit on New Year’s Eve. The pair of probes are tasked with measuring the uneven gravity field of the moon and determine what lies beneath — straight down to the core.

NASA’s twin lunar Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) probes were launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on September 10, 2011. GRAIL-A is scheduled to arrive in lunar orbit beginning on Saturday, December 31, and GRAIL-B on Sunday, January 1. On New Year’s Eve, the pair of probes will fire their engine to slow down so that it could be captured into orbit. This move will be repeated by the other the following day.

Once in orbit, the pair will spend two months following each other around the moon. Scientists back on Earth will measure the varying distance between the pair of spaceships to calculate the lunar gravity field.

Speaking Monday, the team expressed confidence that the mission will continue to perform flawlessly, adding that they expect to gather an unprecedented amount of data from the mission.

“Both spacecraft have performed essentially flawlessly since launch, but one can never take anything for granted in this business,” said mission chief scientist Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Engineers said the chances of the probes overshooting are slim since their trajectories have been precise. Getting struck by a cosmic ray may prevent the completion of the engine burn and they won’t get boosted into the right orbit.

The straight-line distance from Earth to the moon is about 250,000 miles. It took NASA’s Apollo moon crews about three days to cover that distance. Each of the GRAIL twins is taking about 30 times that long and covering more than 2.5 million miles to get there. This low-energy, high-cruise time trajectory is beneficial for mission planners and controllers, as it allows more time for spacecraft checkout. NASA said the path would allow the program to save money and increase the chances of a successful mission.

Diamond stud earrings

Read more

NASA to announce latest alien planets discovery on Tuesday

2011-12-20T05:24:00.000-08:00

NASA says it will hold a press conference on Tuesday to announce the latest discoveries of its Kepler spacecraft, an observatory launched into orbit in March 2009. The announcement will be based exclusively on the discoveries of the Kepler mission.
The announcement follows discovery earlier this month of the first potentially habitable alien planet located about 600 light-years from Earth. According to Digital Journal, NASA scientists say the planet orbits its star in the habitable zone where conditions are right for liquid water to exist on the planet and therefore, possibly life. The discovery of the planet Kepler-22b was announced on December 5.
IB Times reports that at the press conference on Tuesday, NASA will give official details about the newly discovered planet Kepler-22b. NASA will also be giving details about other newly discovered planets in habitable zones.
William Borucki, principal investigator with the Kepler mission, said they have found about 50 possible planets in the habitable zone since the 2009 Kepler launch. The Kepler mission has found about 2,326 bodies that are potentially planets in the first 16 months of operation and 28 of them have been confirmed as planets.
The total number of planets confirmed so far by Kepler mission and other planet search missions is more the 700.
NASA reports that Tuesday's press conference will begin at 1 p.m. EST. There will be a webcast of the press conference on NASA's website. Speakers will include: Nick Gautier, Kepler project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California; Francois Fressin, the lead scientist on the new discovery, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.; David Charbonneau, professor of astronomy at Harvard University; Linda Elkins-Tanton, director of the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism in Washington.

Diamond stud

Read more

NASA,Industry Leaders Discuss New Booster Development for Space Launch System

2011-12-16T21:55:00.000-08:00

On Dec. 15, more than 120 aerospace industry leaders from more than 70 companies attended the Space Launch System's Advanced Booster Industry Day held at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The event focused on a NASA Research Announcement for the Space Launch System's (SLS) advanced booster.

Marshall is leading the design and development of the SLS on behalf of the agency. The new heavy-lift launch vehicle will expand human presence beyond low-Earth orbit and enable new missions of exploration across the solar system.

For explorations beyond the first two test flights, the SLS vehicle will require an advanced booster with a significant increase in thrust over existing U.S. liquid or solid boosters.

"As we are forging ahead with Space Launch System development, we are pleased to have such a strong response from industry and look forward to their ideas and hardware demonstrations for advance boosters concepts," said Todd May, SLS program manager. "Together, our expertise will enable an entirely new U.S. booster capability -- the largest and highest performing booster system ever produced -- to begin the journey to deep space safely and affordably."

Through this research announcement, NASA is seeking proposals for engineering demonstrations and/or risk reduction strategies for advanced booster concepts. The aim is to reducing risks while enhancing affordability, improving reliability and meeting our performance goals during an initial 30-month phase prior to the full and open Design Development Test and Evaluation (DDTE) competition. The total award value for the research announcement is $200 million with multiple awards anticipated.

Diamond stud earrings

Read more

NASA ISS On-Orbit Status 11 December 2011

2011-12-12T05:10:00.000-08:00

All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except those noted previously or below. Sunday - Crew off day. Ahead: Week 4 of Increment 30 (three-person crew).

After wakeup, FE-1 Shkaplerov performed the routine inspection of the SM (Service Module) PSS Caution & Warning panel as part of regular Daily Morning Inspection.

CDR Burbank completed the visual T+2 Days (44 +/- 4h) microbial (bacterial & fungal) analysis of PWD (Potable Water Dispenser) water samples collected by him on 12/9, using the WMK MCD (Water Microbiology Kit / Microbial Capture Devices) for microbial traces, and the CDB (Coliform Detection Bag) for inflight coliform indications (Magenta for Positive, Yellow for Negative).

FE-2 Ivanishin conducted the routine daily servicing of the SOZh system (Environment Control & Life Support System, ECLSS) in the SM. This included the weekly collection of the toilet flush (SP) counter and water supply (SVO) readings for calldown to TsUP-Moscow, as well as the weekly checkup on the Russian POTOK-150MK (150 micron) air filter unit of the SM's & FGB's SOGS air revitalization subsystem, gathering weekly data on total operating time & "On" durations for calldown. [SOZh servicing includes checking the ASU toilet facilities, replacement of the KTO & KBO solid waste containers and replacement of EDV-SV waste water and EDV-U urine containers].

At ~7:15am EST, Anton Shkaplerov & Anatoly Ivanishin engaged in a PAO phone interview via S-band with Ekaterina Beloglazova, Editor of Rossiyskiy Kosmos (Russian Space) Magazine and an old friend of ISS cosmonauts. ["Hello, Anton and Anatoly, first of all, could you share with us your first impressions of the Soyuz flight and station docking?- What kind of welcome did you get from the crew? Did they wine and dine you and let you go to sleep? How did your first day go?- What or who did you dream about on your first night at the new place?- Tell us how you were feeling initially and now. How does it feel to be at zero gravity?- I'm sure you've looked up all modules. Tell us about them and about the station in general, what does it look like in reality?- You had a very short handover but you've learned certain things on the ground. Was it easy and practical? What was Sergei Volkov able to accomplish in the way of introducing you to the ISS?- Did you hit the ground running or you needed some time for adaptation? What experiments do you like the most and what have you been able to do over (almost) a month?- What does the Earth look like from orbit, do you recognize some places now, and what impressed you the most?-Tell us about your next month's activities.- Thank you and see you soon! Ekaterina."]

At ~3:40pm, Dan Burbank is scheduled for his weekly PFC (Private Family Conference), via S-band/audio and Ku-band/MS-NetMeeting application (which displays the uplinked ground video on an SSC laptop).

At ~4:15pm, Dan also has a CDE (Crew Discretionary Event) on his schedule.

The crew worked out with their regular 2-hr physical exercise protocol on the CEVIS cycle ergometer with vibration isolation (CDR), TVIS treadmill with vibration isolation & stabilization (FE-1, FE-2), ARED advanced resistive exerciser (CDR), and VELO ergometer bike with load trainer (FE-1, FE-2).

Tasks listed for Shkaplerov & Ivanishin on the Russian discretionary "time permitting" job for today were -
* A ~30-min. run of the GFI-8 "Uragan" (hurricane) earth-imaging program with the NIKON D3X digital camera with Sigma AF 300-800mm telelens, aiming for Hudson Volcano, Chile, the glaciers of Patagonia and Volcano Cordon-Kaul,
* A 10-min. photography session for the DZZ-13 "Seiner" ocean observation program, obtaining HDV (Z1) camcorder footage of color bloom patterns in the waters of the South-Eastern Pacific, then copying the images to the RSK-1 laptop,
* A video recording of New Year Greetings to be used in a joint project of Roskosmos TV Studio with Carousel TV Channel for children ages 8 to 12 years, the "It's Time to go to space!" program, which has a segment where Russian cosmonauts are discussing their work &, answer viewers' questions (currently they are working on a New Year episode). The footage was then to be downlinked to TsUP-Moscow.
* Taking documentary photographs through SM windows of the removable cassettes S #9-S and SKK #2-DC1, installed on the cylindrical portion of the SM propulsion compartment between planes I and IV, and on the DC1 Docking Compartment, and
* Another ~30-min. session for Russia's EKON Environmental Safety Agency, making observations and taking KPT-3 aerial photography of environmental conditions on Earth using the NIKON D3X camera with the RSK-1 laptop.

WRM Update: A new WRM (Water Recovery Management) "cue card" was uplinked to the crew for their reference, updated with their latest CWC (Contingency Water Container) water audit. [The new card (29-0008B) lists 32 CWCs (490.7 L total) for the five types of water identified on board: 1. Silver technical water (6 CWCs with 199.5 L, for Elektron electrolysis, all containing Wautersia bacteria; 2. Condensate water (3 CWCs with 19.1 L), 7 empty bags; 3. Iodinated water (11 CWCs with 186.4 L; also 3 expired bags with 59.1 L); 4. Waste water (1 bag with 6.4 L EMU waste water); and 5. Special fluid (1 CWC with 20.2 L, hose/pump flush). Other CWCs are stowed behind racks and are currently not being tracked due to unchanging contents. Wautersia bacteria are typical water-borne microorganisms that have been seen previously in ISS water sources. These isolates pose no threat to human health.]

GHF Checkout: On 12/1, JAXA ground controllers continued the extensive checkout of the GHF (Gradient Heating Furnace) payload on the Kobairo Rack in the Kibo JPM (JEM Pressurized Module) which began on 12/1 and is continuing for about 14 days.

Diamond earring studs

Read more

FOUND! Another earth and sun

2011-12-07T04:31:00.000-08:00

A ‘habitable’ earth-like planet, which is orbiting around a sun-like star 600 light years away, has been discovered in our galaxy for the first time, researchers say. A team of researchers from NASA’s Kepler Mission has discovered what could be a large, rocky planet with a surface temperature of
about 72 degrees Fahrenheit, comparable to a comfortable spring day on Earth.

The discovery team, led by William Borucki of the NASA Ames Research Center, used photometric data from the NASA Kepler space telescope, which monitors the brightness of 155,000 stars.

Earth-size planets whose orbital planes are aligned such that they periodically pass in front of their stars result in tiny dimmings of their host star’s light dimmings that can only be measured by a highly specialized space telescope like Kepler.

The host star lies about 600 light-years away from us toward the constellations of Lyra and Cygnus.

The star, a G5 star, has a mass and a radius only slightly smaller than that of our Sun, a G2 star. As a result, the host star is about 25 percent less luminous than the Sun.

The planet orbits the G5 star with an orbital period of 290 days, compared to 365 days for the Earth, at a distance about 15 percent closer to its star than the Earth from the Sun. This results in the planet’s balmy temperature. It orbits in the middle of the star’s habitable zone, where liquid water is expected to be able to exist on the surface of the planet.

Liquid water is necessary for life as we know it, and this new planet might well be not only habitable, perhaps even inhabited.

Diamond stud earrings

Read more

What's Next For NASA?

2011-12-05T01:38:00.000-08:00

Exploration

NASA is designing and building the capabilities to send humans to explore the solar system, working toward a goal of landing humans on Mars. We will build the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, based on the design for the Orion capsule, with a capacity to take four astronauts on 21-day missions.

NASA is also moving forward with the development of the Space Launch System -- an advanced heavy-lift launch vehicle that will provide an entirely new national capability for human exploration beyond Earth's orbit. The SLS rocket will use a liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propulsion system, which will include shuttle engines for the core stage and the J-2X engine for the upper stage.

We are developing the technologies we will need for human exploration of the solar system, including solar electric propulsion, refueling depots in orbit, radiation protection and high-reliability life support systems.

International Space Station
The International Space Station is the centerpiece of our human spaceflight activities in low Earth orbit. The ISS is fully staffed with a crew of six, and American astronauts will continue to live and work there in space 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Part of the U.S. portion of the station has been designated as a national laboratory, and NASA is committed to using this unique resource for scientific research.

The ISS is a test bed for exploration technologies such as autonomous refueling of spacecraft, advanced life support systems and human/robotic interfaces. Commercial companies are well on their way to providing cargo and crew flights to the ISS, allowing NASA to focus its attention on the next steps into our solar system.

Aeronautics
NASA is researching ways to design and build aircraft that are safer, more fuel-efficient, quieter, and environmentally responsible. We are also working to create traffic management systems that are safer, more efficient and more flexible. We are developing technologies that improve routing during flights and enable aircraft to climb to and descend from their cruising altitude without interruption.

We believe it is possible to build an aircraft that uses less fuel, gives off fewer emissions, and is quieter, and we are working on the technologies to create that aircraft. NASA is also part of the government team that is working to develop the Next Generation Air Transportation System, or NextGen, to be in place by the year 2025. We will continue to validate new, complex aircraft and air traffic control systems to ensure that they meet extremely high safety levels.

Diamond stud earrings

Read more

NASA's Hubble Confirms That Galaxies Are the Ultimate Recyclers

2011-12-02T04:01:00.000-08:00

New observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope are expanding astronomers' understanding of the ways in which galaxies continuously recycle immense volumes of hydrogen gas and heavy elements. This process allows galaxies to build successive generations of stars stretching over billions of years.

This ongoing recycling keeps some galaxies from emptying their "fuel tanks" and stretches their star-forming epoch to over 10 billion years.

This conclusion is based on a series of Hubble Space Telescope observations that flexed the special capabilities of its Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) to detect gas in the halo of our Milky Way and more than 40 other galaxies. Data from large ground-based telescopes in Hawaii, Arizona and Chile also contributed to the studies by measuring the properties of the galaxies.

Astronomers believe that the color and shape of a galaxy is largely controlled by gas flowing through an extended halo around it. The three studies investigated different aspects of the gas-recycling phenomenon.

The results are being published in three papers in the November 18 issue of Science magazine. The leaders of the three studies are Nicolas Lehner of the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind.; Jason Tumlinson of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md.; and Todd Tripp of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

The COS observations of distant stars demonstrate that a large mass of clouds is falling through the giant halo of our Milky Way, fueling its ongoing star formation. These clouds of hot hydrogen reside within 20,000 light-years of the Milky Way disk and contain enough material to make 100 million suns. Some of this gas is recycled material that is continually being replenished by star formation and the explosive energy of novae and supernovae, which kicks chemically enriched gas back into the halo.

The COS observations also show halos of hot gas surrounding vigorous star-forming galaxies. These halos, rich in heavy elements, extend as much as 450,000 light-years beyond the visible portions of their galactic disks. The amount of heavy-element mass discovered far outside a galaxy came as a surprise. COS measured 10 million solar masses of oxygen in a galaxy's halo, which corresponds to about one billion solar masses of gas -- as much as in the entire space between stars in a galaxy’s disk.

Researchers also found that this gas is nearly absent from galaxies that have stopped forming stars. In these galaxies, the “recycling” process ignites a rapid firestorm of star birth which can blow away the remaining fuel, essentially turning off further star-birth activity.

Diamond stud

Read more

NASA's Nanosail-D 'Sails' Home -- Mission Complete

2011-11-30T01:09:00.000-08:00

After spending more than 240 days "sailing" around the Earth, NASA's NanoSail-D -- a nanosatellite that deployed NASA's first-ever solar sail in low-Earth orbit -- has successfully completed its Earth orbiting mission.

Launched to space Nov. 19, 2010 as a payload on NASA's FASTSAT, a small satellite, NanoSail-D's sail deployed on Jan. 20.

The flight phase of the mission successfully demonstrated a deorbit capability that could potentially be used to bring down decommissioned satellites and space debris by re-entering and totally burning up in the Earth's atmosphere. The team continues to analyze the orbital data to determine how future satellites can use this new technology.

A main objective of the NanoSail-D mission was to demonstrate and test the deorbiting capabilities of a large low mass high surface area sail.

"The NanoSail-D mission produced a wealth of data that will be useful in understanding how these types of passive deorbit devices react to the upper atmosphere," said Joe Casas, FASTSAT project scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

"The data collected from the mission is being evaluated, said Casas, in conjunction with data from FASTSAT science experiments intended to study and better understand the drag influences of Earth's upper atmosphere on satellite orbital re-entry."

The FASTSAT science experiments are led by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. and sponsored by the Department of Defense Space Experiments Review Board which is supported by the Department of Defense Space Test Program.

Initial assessment indicates NanoSail-D exhibited the predicted cyclical deorbit rate behavior that was only previously theorized by researchers.

"The final rate of descent depended on the nature of solar activity, the density of the atmosphere surrounding NanoSail-D and the angle of the sail to the orbital track," said Dean Alhorn, principal investigator for NanoSail-D at Marshall Space Flight Center. "It is astounding to see how the satellite reacted to the sun's solar pressure. The recent solar flares increased the drag and brought the nanosatellite back home quickly."

Diamond stud

Read more

NASA's NPP Satellite Acquires First VIIRS Image

2011-11-28T04:05:00.000-08:00

GREENBELT, Md. -- The Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) onboard NASA's newest Earth-observing satellite, NPP, acquired its first measurements on Nov. 21, 2011. This high-resolution image is of a broad swath of Eastern North America from Canada’s Hudson Bay past Florida to the northern coast of Venezuela. The VIIRS data were processed at the NOAA Satellite Operations Facility (NSOF) in Suitland, Md.

VIIRS is one of five instruments onboard the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP) satellite that launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on Oct. 28. Since then, NPP reached its final orbit at an altitude of 512 miles (824 kilometers), powered on all instruments and is traveling around the Earth at 16,640 miles an hour (eight kilometers per second).

"This image is a next step forward in the success of VIIRS and the NPP mission," said James Gleason, NPP project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

VIIRS will collect radiometric imagery in visible and infrared wavelengths of the Earth's land, atmosphere, and oceans. By far the largest instrument onboard NPP, VIIRS weighs about 556 pounds (252 kilograms). Its data, collected from 22 channels across the electromagnetic spectrum, will be used to observe the Earth's surface including fires, ice, ocean color, vegetation, clouds, and land and sea surface temperatures.

"VIIRS heralds a brightening future for continuing these essential measurements of our environment and climate," said Diane Wickland, NPP program scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington. She adds that all of NPP's five instruments will be up and running by mid-December and NPP will begin 2012 by sending down complete data.

"NPP is right on track to ring in the New Year," said Ken Schwer, NPP project manager at NASA Goddard. "Along with VIIRS, NPP carries four more instruments that monitor the environment on Earth and the planet's climate, providing crucial information on long-term patterns to assess climate change and data used by meteorologists to improve short-term weather forecasting."

NPP serves as a bridge mission from NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) of satellites to the next-generation Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) program that will also collect weather and climate data. NASA Goddard manages the NPP mission for the Earth Science Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Diamond stud

Read more

NASA's Hubble Finds Stellar Life and Death in a Globular Cluster

2011-11-24T04:07:00.000-08:00

A new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows globular cluster NGC 1846, a spherical collection of hundreds of thousands of stars in the outer halo of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighboring dwarf galaxy of the Milky Way that can be seen from the southern hemisphere.

Aging bright stars in the cluster glow in intense shades of red and blue. The majority of middle-aged stars, several billions of years old, are whitish in color. A myriad of far distant background galaxies of varying shapes and structure are scattered around the image.

The most intriguing object, however, doesn’t seem to belong in the cluster. It is a faint green bubble near the bottom center of the image. This so-called ‘planetary nebula’ is the aftermath of the death of a star. The burned-out central star can be seen inside the bubble. It is uncertain whether the planetary nebula is a member of NGC 1846, or simply lies along the line of sight to the cluster. Measurements of the motion of the cluster stars and the planetary nebula’s central star suggest it might be a cluster member.

This Hubble image was taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys in January of 2006. The cluster was observed in filters that isolate blue, green, and infrared starlight. As a member of the Large Magellanic Cloud, NGC 1846 is located roughly 160,000 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Doradus.

Diamond stud

Read more

NASA Prepares for Mars Rover Launch: Here's How You Can Watch

2011-11-22T00:06:00.000-08:00

On Friday, November 25 at 10:25 am EST (7:25 am Pacific), the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission will rocket into the sky on a 191-foot-tall Atlas V rocket and begin its mission to Mars. While the MSL rover, Curiosity, is currently sitting on top of the Atlas V rocket, NASA is making its final preparations for the first launch opportunity, and tweeters are preparing for a two-day launch tweetup.

The MSL is an extremely important Mars mission that will perform the first-ever precision landing--using a guided entry system--on Mars; analyze the soil for organic compounds; investigate the composition of the Martian surface; and determine the Martian atmospheric cycling and processes, as well as a number of other atmospheric conditions that could help determine the past and future habitability of Mars.

That last one is important--we may finally have the answer to whether life has ever existed on Mars.

According to NASA, Curiosity is twice as long and five times as heavy as previous Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity; it will also carry instruments that weigh 15 times as much as the previous Mars rover payloads, and according to the New York Times, the total cost of MSL is about $2.3 billion.

Currently, NASA is preparing for launching the mission on November 25th--the first launch opportunity. If weather or other conditions prevent launch then there will be other launch windows through the 18th of December of this year. The rover will land on Mars in August of 2012 and the mission will last for 686 Earth days.

Diamond Stud

Read more

NASA Orbiter Catches Mars Sand Dunes in Motion

2011-11-21T03:13:00.000-08:00

PASADENA, Calif. -- Images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show sand dunes and ripples moving across the surface of Mars at dozens of locations and shifting up to several yards. These observations reveal the planet's sandy surface is more dynamic than previously thought.

"Mars either has more gusts of wind than we knew about before, or the winds are capable of transporting more sand," said Nathan Bridges, planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., and lead author of a paper on the finding published online in the journal Geology. "We used to think of the sand on Mars as relatively immobile, so these new observations are changing our whole perspective."

While red dust is known to swirl all around Mars in storms and dust devils, the planet's dark sand grains are larger and harder to move. Less than a decade ago, scientists thought the dunes and ripples on Mars either did not budge or moved too slowly for detection.

MRO was launched in 2005. Initial images from the spacecraft's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera documented only a few cases of shifting sand dunes and ripples, collectively called bedforms. Now, after years of monitoring the Martian surface, the spacecraft has documented movements of a few yards (or meters) per year in dozens of locations across the planet.

The air on Mars is thin, so stronger gusts of wind are needed to push a grain of sand. Wind-tunnel experiments have shown that a patch of sand would take winds of about 80 mph (nearly 130 kilometers per hour) to move on Mars compared with only 10 mph (about 16 kilometers per hour) on Earth. Measurements from the meteorology experiments on NASA's Viking landers in the 1970s and early 1980s, in addition to climate models, showed such winds should be rare on Mars.

The first hints that Martian dunes move came from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, which operated from 1997 to 2006. But the spacecraft's cameras lacked the resolution to definitively detect the changes. NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers also detected hints of shifting sand when they touched down on the Red Planet's surface in 2004. The mission team was surprised to see grains of sand dotting the rovers' solar panels. They also witnessed the rovers' track marks filling in with sand.

"Sand moves by hopping from place to place," said Matthew Golombek, a co-author of the new paper and a member of the Mars Exploration Rover and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter teams at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Before the rovers landed on Mars, we had no clear evidence of sand moving."

Not all of the sand on Mars is blowing in the wind. The study also identifies several areas where the bedforms did not move.

"The sand dunes where we didn't see movement today could have larger grains, or perhaps their surface layers are cemented together," said Bridges, who also is a member of the HiRISE team. "These studies show the benefit of long-term monitoring at high resolution."
Diamond stud

Read more

Google, NASA work together on space exploration

2011-11-17T01:21:00.000-08:00

Who knew the basic design of a moon rover could be found at your local pet shop?

Team Frednet, one of 26 contenders for the Google Lunar X Prize, has built a round, translucent robotic vehicle that resembles nothing so much as a hamster ball. If the rolling globe can navigate 500 meters of the moon's surface and send back high-definition video along the way, the team has a shot at the $20 million grand prize.

Of course, to do that the Santa Cruz-based group will need to pull off the first privately-funded mission to the moon. It's no small undertaking - and that's the point. The X Prize Foundation was established to inspire the sort of "radical breakthroughs" that can spawn new industries.

Google, NASA and contest participants all say that commercial expeditions to the moon represent the first necessary step toward unleashing the potential of a "space economy." Once businesses can regularly and economically reach into deep space, it opens virtually endless possibilities for tourism, resource extraction and even space habitation.

'Something new'
"We can't keep resting on what we've done," said Fred Bourgeois of Santa Cruz, founder of Frednet. "We need to build something new."

The contest was announced four years ago and the final deadline is in 2015. If four years seems like a long time, you clearly don't have to raise tens of millions of dollars and build a spacecraft.

Bourgeois does. He's organizing a worldwide team of volunteers (about 700 from 63 countries at last count) that is tackling a bevy of tasks like software development, communications system design and, of course, debugging the hamster ball.

The "Picorover" works on the same principle as the pet shop product, only it's robotic and features a few studs and spikes for traction. The team believes it will be the ideal craft for navigating the moon's irregular terrain without getting stuck.

Among other things, it's hard for a ball to tip over. It's also completely enclosed, offering an ingenious way to keep out the lunar dust that can derail other rovers.

At this point, Frednet has completed most of the designs for the mission. NASA signaled that the plans have at least a decent chance of succeeding by awarding the group a contract to bring back data that could be worth more than $10 million. It was one of only six groups to cinch such a deal.

Now Frednet just needs some money to start building things. Bourgeois estimates the whole undertaking will top $30 million, but fundraising has been difficult during the economic downturn.

The funny thing is, technology is not the real challenge in getting to the moon. Recall that Neil Armstrong reached the lunar surface in 1969 equipped with less computing power than a smart phone.

Instead, the challenge for a privately funded mission to the moon is private funding. It's difficult for the typical Fortune 500 company or venture capitalist to justify such an enormous expense with so little immediate payoff.

Public, private sectors
In that sense, the X Prize serves as a bridge between public and private sectors. It's harnessing the twin powers of incentives and competition to push innovations in the face of market failures and declining government spending on scientific research.

Even the top prize won't cover all the expenses, and only one team gets that. But the awards at least defray costs and spark imaginations.

Diamond stud

Read more

NASA's New Upper Stage Engine Passes Major Test

2011-11-15T03:58:00.000-08:00

NASA conducted a successful 500-second test firing of the J-2X rocket engine on Wednesday, Nov. 9, marking another important step in development of an upper stage for the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS).

SLS will carry the Orion spacecraft, its crew, cargo, equipment and science experiments to destinations in deep space. SLS will be safe, affordable and sustainable to continue America's journey of discovery from the unique vantage point of space.

"The J-2X engine is critical to the development of the Space Launch System," Dan Dumbacher, NASA's deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development, said after the test at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. "Today's test means NASA is moving closer to developing the rocket it needs if humans are to explore beyond low-Earth orbit."

Data from the test will be analyzed as operators prepare for additional engine firings. The J-2X and the RS-25D/E engines for the SLS core stage will be tested for flight certification at Stennis. Both engines use liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants. The core stage engines were developed originally for the space shuttle.

"The J-2X engine team and the SLS program as a whole are extremely happy that we accomplished a good, safe and successful test today," said Mike Kynard, Space Launch System Engines Element Manager at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. "This engine test firing gives us critical data to move forward in the engine's development."

Diamond stud

Read more

Killer flares won't destroy Earth, says NASA

2011-11-14T04:50:00.000-08:00

NASA's explained - with some weariness, one imagines - that next year really isn't going to see the release of any massive solar flares which could destroy the Earth.

For a start, it points out, the solar maximum doesn't actually coincide with any Mayan end-of-world predictions, but will arrive late in 2013 or early 2014.

And in any case, everybody over the age of 11 has already experienced one solar maximum and lived to tell the tale.

"Most importantly, however, there simply isn't enough energy in the sun to send a killer fireball 93 million miles to destroy Earth," says NASA.

That's the good news - but the bad news is that solar flares could cause some pretty considerable damage. While the heat of a solar flare can't make it all the way to our globe, electromagnetic radiation and energetic particles certainly can.

This can temporarily alter the upper atmosphere creating disruptions with signal transmission from, say, a GPS satellite, which could cause it to be off by many yards.

Even more disruptively, coronal mass ejections (CMEs) can propel bursts of particles and electromagnetic fluctuations right into the Earth's atmosphere. These can induce electric fluctuations at ground level that could blow out transformers in power grids, and can also collide with satellite electronics systems and cause disruptions.

"In an increasingly technological world, where almost everyone relies on cell phones and GPS controls not just your in-car map system, but also airplane navigation and the extremely accurate clocks that govern financial transactions, space weather is a serious matter," says NASA.

Diamond stud

Read more

NASA's Hubble Observes Young Dwarf Galaxies Bursting With Stars

2011-11-10T22:22:00.000-08:00

Using its near-infrared vision to peer 9 billion years back in time, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered an extraordinary population of young dwarf galaxies brimming with star formation. While dwarf galaxies are the most common type of galaxy in the universe, the rapid star-birth observed in these newly found examples may force astronomers to reassess their understanding of the ways in which galaxies form.

The galaxies are a hundred times less massive, on average, than the Milky Way, yet churn out stars at such a furious pace that their stellar content would double in just 10 million years. By comparison, the Milky Way would take a thousand times longer to double its star population.

The universe is estimated to be 13.7 billion years old, and these newly discovered galaxies are extreme even for the young universe -- when most galaxies were forming stars at higher rates than they are today. Astronomers using Hubble's instruments could spot the galaxies because the radiation from young, hot stars has caused the oxygen in the gas surrounding them to light up like a bright neon sign.

"The galaxies have been there all along, but up until recently astronomers have been able only to survey tiny patches of sky at the sensitivities necessary to detect them," said Arjen van der Wel of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, lead author of a paper on the results being published online on Nov. 14 in The Astrophysical Journal. "We weren't looking specifically for these galaxies, but they stood out because of their unusual colors."

The observations were part of the Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS), an ambitious three-year study to analyze the most distant galaxies in the universe. CANDELS is the first census of dwarf galaxies at such an early epoch.

"In addition to the images, Hubble has captured spectra that show us the oxygen in a handful of galaxies and confirmed their extreme star-forming nature," said co-author Amber Straughn at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Spectra are like fingerprints. They tell us the galaxies' chemical composition."

The resulting observations are somewhat at odds with recent detailed studies of the dwarf galaxies that are orbiting as satellites of the Milky Way.

"Those studies suggest that star formation was a relatively slow process, stretching out over billions of years," explained Harry Ferguson of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md., co-leader of the CANDELS survey. "The CANDELS finding that there were galaxies of roughly the same size forming stars at very rapid rates at early times is forcing us to re-examine what we thought we knew about dwarf galaxy evolution."

The CANDELS team uncovered the 69 young dwarf galaxies in near-infrared images taken with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys.

Diamond stud

Read more

NASA Captures New Images of Large Asteroid Passing Earth

2011-11-08T03:20:00.000-08:00

Pasadena, CA – NASA’s Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, CA has captured new radar images of Asteroid 2005 YU55 passing close to Earth.

The asteroid safely will safely fly past our planet slightly closer than the moon’s orbit on November 8th. The last time a space rock this large came as close to Earth was in 1976, although astronomers did not know about the flyby at the time. The next known approach of an asteroid this size will be in 2028.

The image was taken on November 7th at 11:45am PST (2:45pm EST/1945 UTC), when the asteroid was approximately 860,000 miles (1.38 million kilometers) away from Earth. Tracking of the aircraft carrier-sized asteroid began at Goldstone at 9:30am PDT on November 4th with the 230-foot-wide (70-meter) antenna and lasted about two hours, with an additional four hours of tracking planned each day from November 6th – 10th.

Radar observations from the Arecibo Planetary Radar Facility in Puerto Rico will begin November 8th, the same day the asteroid will make its closest approach to Earth at 3:28pm PST (6:28pm EST/1128 UTC).

The trajectory of asteroid 2005 YU55 is well understood. At the point of closest approach, it will be no closer than 201,700 miles (324,600 kilometers) as measured from the center of Earth, or about 0.85 times the distance from the moon to Earth. The gravitational influence of the asteroid will have no detectable effect on Earth, including tides and tectonic plates. Although the asteroid is in an orbit that regularly brings it to the vicinity of Earth, Venus and Mars, the 2011 encounter with Earth is the closest it has come for at least the last 200 years.

Diamond studs

Read more

NASA's Giant Rocket to Use Existing Launch Platform, Shuttle Crawlers

2011-11-02T21:37:00.000-07:00

NASA intends to upgrade one of its Apollo-era treaded crawlers and an inactive mobile platform built for the canceled Ares launcher program to support the agency's colossal super-rocket, officially called the Space Launch System, in time for a test flight in 2017.

The modifications are part of up to $2 billion of work to prepare the Kennedy Space Center for the new heavy-lift rocket, which will initially be powered off the launch pad by three space shuttle main engines and two five-segment solid rocket boosters also derived from the shuttle program.

Although questions about its cost still linger, NASA plans to spend $10 billion to design and develop the Space Launch System for its first unmanned flight in 2017. Assuming the launcher is fully funded and remains near cost projections, it will be able to lift 70 metric tons, or about 154,000 pounds, into low Earth orbit on its first mission.

The $500 million launch platform built for the Ares 1 rocket is being tapped for the much more powerful Space Launch System. Declared structurally complete in January 2010, the mobile launch pad will have to be altered to support the heavier weight and additional thrust of the heavy-lifter, according to NASA officials.

One of NASA's crawler-transporters will be made ready to haul the massive rocket and mobile platform between the Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building and launch pad 39B.

Larry Schultz, the mobile launcher project manager, said the biggest changes will be on the platform's base, where engineers will increase the size of a 22-square-foot exhaust duct and strengthen the surrounding structure. The SLS will weigh more than twice as much as the planned Ares 1 rocket.

The Ares 1 rocket would have featured a single solid-fueled first stage, while the Space Launch System will include two large strap-on boosters and a powerful core.

The thrust cutout will be expanded to a rectangle stretching 60 feet by 30 feet, according to Shultz. The modifications will be complete by 2016.

The 390-foot-tall Ares mobile launcher was being eyed as the launch platform for the commercially-developed Liberty rocket proposed by ATK, the contractor for the Ares 1's first stage and the space shuttle and SLS solid rocket boosters. Resembling the Ares 1, the Liberty rocket would combine a five-segment solid motor first stage with a second stage from EADS Astrium based on the core of the European Ariane 5 launcher.

According to Bob Cabana, director of the Kennedy Space Center, the Ares platform will be solely used by the Space Launch System. Cabana said the space shuttle's mobile launch platforms, which date back to the 1960s, could be available to commercial users interested in launching from KSC.

Unlike the shuttle platforms, the Ares/SLS mobile launcher features a 345-foot-tall tower on top of a 45-foot-tall base. The tower would provide access to various levels of the rocket during assembly and launch operations.

Pepper Phillips, program manager for 21st century ground systems at KSC, said engineers will "up-rate" the capacity of one of the two crawlers at the spaceport.

"For the time being, we are 'up-rating' the load capacity of one of the crawlers so that it can handle the heavier loads associated with the SLS," Phillips said. "We will perform some minor life extension mods to the second to keep it in service."

Diamond studs

Read more

NASA forces Apollo astronaut to give back space camera

2011-10-31T02:14:00.000-07:00

Former astronaut Edgar Mitchell has reluctantly given back the space camera he brought home from his 1971 Apollo 14 moon mission, rather than face a federal lawsuit over its ownership.

The 81-year-old argued the data acquisition camera was a gift from NASA, and earlier this year - four decades after taking it to space - he tried to auction it through the British firm Bonhams.

NASA says the camera is U.S. government property and sued Mr Mitchell to get it back after learning in March the device was up for sale.

In papers filed Thursday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami stated Mr Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon, will 'relinquish all claims of ownership, legal title, or dominion' of the 16mm motion picture camera.

Mr Mitchell agreed to allow Bonhams' New York auction house, where the camera was consigned for sale last June, to release the artifact to the government. Bonhams had estimated the camera's value at $60,000 to $80,000.

Once returned to NASA, the space agency will pass it on to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington for display within 60 days.

Both sides will pay their own legal expenses. A judge was expected to sign off on the settlement in the coming days.

Mitchell’s attorney Armen R. Vartian said his client decided the settlement was the best way to resolve a conflict with NASA.

'I think both sides saw the lawsuit as something that should not continue,' he added.

Mr Mitchell is one of 12 humans to have walked on the moon. He later received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The data acquisition cameras (DAC), measuring six inches, by four inches by two inches, were taken into space to record engineering data and lunar surface imagery.

This particular camera was one of two that went to the moon's surface on the Apollo 14 mission, which Mr Mitchell piloted. It shot the final five minutes of the lunar module, named Antares, landing on the moon.

Diamond Studs

Read more

Delta II Poised to Launch NPP

2011-10-29T04:56:00.000-07:00

A technological trailblazer is poised to lift off from a California launch pad to take a place in space to show us what is happening on Earth. Known as the NPP, for National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project, the two-ton spacecraft is destined for an orbit 512 miles above the planet where it will be able to see every part of the Earth.

Because it is going into a polar orbit crossing both the north and south poles while the world spins beneath it, the NPP mission will launch from NASA's Space Launch Complex-2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

NPP has two goals, according to James Gleason, NPP project scientist.

"One is to get the data for the weather forecasts, environmental observations and take a whole suite of observations that continue our satellite data records which span from measuring aerosols, you know, dust particles in the atmosphere, how have they changed over the past decade?," Gleason said. "Is the ground greener or browner over time? Has the sea surface temperature changed? Has the ozone changed? These are all data sets that we have that we have multi-decades sets of data sets and we just want to keep adding to that so we can answer the question, is the climate changing?"

Members of NASA's Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy Space Center, have been working at Vandenberg to get the spacecraft ready to launch on a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket.

"We began build-up of the vehicle in July of this year, erecting first stage, the nine solid rocket motors, the second stage, putting the payload fairing into the mobile service tower," NASA Launch Director Tim Dunn said.

Once in orbit, the NPP spacecraft is to scan the world with five instruments that track their development through the sensors used on previous Earth-observation missions.

"NPP is a continuation of the earth orbiting satellite systems," Gleason said. "For weather forecasting and for climate predictions, you need to have continuous observations. So what NPP does is continue the data record started by the NASA EOS satellites and improves on the instruments that are used for numerical weather forecasting from the current series of NOAA satellites."

Diamond Studs

Read more

Storm forces NASA to call off underwater simulation

2011-10-27T00:05:00.000-07:00

NASA evacuated astronauts and scientists participating in an underwater space simulation in the Florida Keys over concerns about Hurricane Rina, officials said on Wednesday.

Six astronauts and scientists participating in the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations, or NEEMO, program left the Aquarius Undersea Laboratory after five days.

The start of the 15th NEEMO mission had been delayed by another storm in the area.

NASA said it will not reschedule the simulation, which was slated to last 13 days off the coast of Key Largo. The goals of the mission were to practice operations and test tools being developed for a future planned human mission to an asteroid.

Rina, a surprising late addition to the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season, was headed toward Mexico's Yucatan peninsula but losing strength on Wednesday.

Computer models forecast Rina, the sixth hurricane of the Atlantic season, will weaken into a tropical storm and move over western Cuba, potentially bringing strong winds and heavy rains to southern Florida and the Keys.

Participants in the NEEMO mission included NASA astronaut Shannon Walker, Japan's Takuya Onishi and Canada's David Saint-Jacques and scientists Steven Squyres with Cornell University and James Talacek and Nate Bender with the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

The NEEMO crew conducted six underwater spacewalks and one day of scientific research. They also used a deep-water submersible to simulate robotic exploration of an asteroid.

Diamond studs

Read more

NASA postpones climate satellite launch to Oct 28

2011-10-20T04:28:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON — NASA on Wednesday set October 28 for its planned launch of a satellite to help weather forecasters predict extreme storms and offer scientists a better view of climate change.

The 1.5 billion dollar National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP) is the first to measure both short and long term changes in weather and climate, the US space agency said.

The launch, initially set for October 27, "has been retargeted for Oct 28," NASA said in a message on the micro-blogging site Twitter.

The satellite will launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California between 5:48 am Eastern time (0948 GMT) and 5:57 am (0957 GMT).

The SUV-sized satellite will carry five instruments to study temperature and water in the atmosphere, how clouds and aerosols affect temperature, and how plants on land and in the ocean respond to environmental changes.

"This is really the first mission that is designed to provide observations for both weather forecasters and climate researchers," Jim Gleason, NPP project scientist, told reporters earlier this month.

"NPP's observations will help scientists better predict the future environment and these prediction are incredibly valuable for economic, security and humanitarian reasons."

The satellite is one of 14 Earth observation missions currently being managed by NASA. Project managers said they hope it will operate for about five years.

Diamond Earring Studs

Read more

NASA Continues Critical Survey of Antarctica's Changing Ice

2011-10-19T04:17:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON -- Scientists with NASA's Operation IceBridge airborne research campaign began the mission's third year of surveys this week over the changing ice of Antarctica.

Researchers are flying a suite of scientific instruments on two planes from a base of operations in Punta Arenas, Chile: a DC-8 operated by NASA and a Gulfstream V (G-V) operated by the National Science Foundation and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The G-V will fly through early November. The DC-8, which completed its first science flight Oct. 12, will fly through mid-November.

Ninety-eight percent of Antarctica is covered in ice. Scientists are concerned about how quickly key features are thinning, such as Pine Island Glacier, which rests on bedrock below sea level. Better understanding this type of change is crucial to projecting impacts like sea-level rise.

"With a third year of data-gathering underway, we are starting to build our own record of change," said Michael Studinger, IceBridge project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "With IceBridge, our aim is to understand what the world's major ice sheets could contribute to sea-level rise. To understand that you have to record how ice sheets and glaciers are changing over time."

IceBridge science flights put a variety of remote-sensing instruments above Antarctica's land and sea ice, and in some regions, above the ocean floor. The G-V carries one instrument: a laser-ranging topography mapper. The DC-8 carries seven instruments, including a laser altimeter to continue the crucial ice sheet elevation record begun by the Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) mission, which ended in 2009. The flying laboratory also will carry radars that can distinguish how much snow sits on top of sea ice and map the terrain of bedrock below thick ice cover.

While scientists in recent years have produced newer, more detailed data about the ice sheet's surface, the topography of the rocky surface beneath the ice sheet remains unknown in many places. Without knowing the topography of the bedrock, it is impossible to know exactly how much ice sits on top of Antarctica.

A gravimeter aboard the DC-8 will detect subtle differences in gravity to map the ocean floor beneath floating ice shelves. Data on bathymetry, or ocean depth, and ocean circulation from previous IceBridge campaigns are helping explain why some glaciers are changing so quickly.

Flights take off from Punta Arenas and cross the Southern Ocean to reach destinations including West Antarctica, the Antarctic Peninsula and coastal areas. Each lasts 10 to 11 hours.

NASA Books A Virgin Flight On Virgin Galactic

2011-10-17T04:09:00.000-07:00

The space shuttle program is retired, and so NASA has engaged the services of Sir Richard Branson's private venture, Virgin Galactic, to service rides to the edge of space. Virgin Galactic announced that the agreement includes NASA to charter a full flight from the company, and it includes options for two additional flights. If all the options are used the value of the contract is $4.5 million, providing opportunities for engineers, technologists and scientific researchers to conduct experiments in suborbital space.

Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Aabar Investments PJS, says each mission allows for up to 1,300 pounds of scientific experiments. The research flights mark an important milestone for Virgin Galactic, and has collected more than $58 million in deposits from 455 future tourist astronauts — providing access to space to researchers is viewed by Virgin Galactic as a significant business opportunity.

"Each mission allows for up to 1,300 pounds of scientific experiments, which could enable up to 600 experimental payloads per flight," the company said in a release. "Providing access to space to researchers and their experiments is viewed by Virgin Galactic as both a future mission segment and a significant business opportunity." Based on the Ansari X Prize-winning SpaceShipOne, SpaceShipTwo is 60 feet long and can carry six passengers and two pilots.

Based on the Ansari X Prize-winning SpaceShipOne, SpaceShipTwo is 60 feet long and can carry six passengers and two pilots, and launches from a mothership, WhiteKnightTwo, at around 50,000 feet.

Diamond Studs

Read more

NASA's Dawn Science Team Presents Early Science Results

2011-10-14T20:36:00.000-07:00

Scientists with NASA's Dawn mission are sharing with other scientists and the public their early information about the southern hemisphere of the giant asteroid Vesta. The findings were presented today at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Minneapolis, Minn.  

Dawn, which has been orbiting Vesta since mid-July, has found that the asteroid's southern hemisphere boasts one of the largest mountains in the solar system. Other findings show that Vesta's surface, viewed by Dawn at different wavelengths, has striking diversity in its composition, particularly around craters. Science findings also include an in-depth analysis of a set of equatorial troughs on Vesta and a closer look at the object's intriguing craters. The surface appears to be much rougher than most asteroids in the main asteroid belt. In addition, preliminary dates from a method that uses the number of craters indicate that areas in the southern hemisphere are as young as 1 billion to 2 billion years old, much younger than areas in the north.

Scientists do not yet understand how all the features on Vesta's surface formed, but they did announce today, after analysis of northern and southern troughs, that results are consistent with models of fracture formation due to giant impact.

Since July, the Dawn spacecraft has been spiraling closer and closer to Vesta, moving in to get better and better views of the surface. In early August, the spacecraft reached an orbital altitude of 1,700 miles (2,700 kilometers) and mapped most of the sunlit surface, during survey orbit, with its framing camera and visible and infrared mapping spectrometer.

That phase was completed in late August, and the spacecraft began moving in to what is known as High Altitude Mapping Orbit at about 420 miles (680 kilometers) above Vesta, which it reached on Sept. 29.

An archive of the live news conference is available for viewing at: http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 .

The Dawn scientists also shared their findings at the recent European Planetary Science Congress and the Division of Planetary Sciences Joint Meeting 2011 in Nantes, France.

Diamond Studs

Read more

NASA to Launch New Satellite to Track Earth's Weather, Climate

2011-10-13T06:12:00.000-07:00

A new NASA satellite that will be the first geared at observing key aspects of both Earth's climate and its weather is slated for launch on Oct. 27, the space agency announced today. The National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP) is the first mission designed to collect critical data to improve weather forecasts in the short-term and increase our understanding of long-term climate change.

NPP's five science instruments, including four new state-of-the-art sensors, will provide scientists with data to extend more than 30 key data records that have been kept for decades by a cadre of Earth-observing satellites. These records, which range from the ozone layer and land cover to atmospheric temperatures and ice cover, are critical for understanding and predicting changes in global climate.

"NPP's observations of a wide range of interconnected Earth properties and processes will give us the big picture of how our planet changes," said Jim Gleason, NPP project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

"That will help us improve our computer models that predict future environmental conditions," Gleason added. "Better predictions will let us make better decisions, whether it is as simple as taking an umbrella to work today or as complex as responding to a changing climate."

Meteorologists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will incorporate NPP data into their weather prediction models to produce forecasts and warnings that will help emergency responders anticipate, monitor and react to many types of natural disasters.

"The timing of the NPP launch could hardly be more appropriate," said Louis W. Uccellini, director of NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Prediction in Camp Springs, Md. "With the many billion dollar weather disasters in 2011, NPP data is critical for accurate weather forecasts into the future."

Diamond Studs

Read more

Another satellite set to crash back to Earth

2011-10-12T06:16:00.000-07:00

Well, you may have been lucky last time, but there's another satellite heading back to Earth, and this time it's much more likely that it'll land on your head.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) plunged safely into the south Pacific Ocean, six years after completing its mission.

And, now, a German research satellite called ROSAT is set to make a similar return to Earth in the next two or three weeks. It's an X-ray telescope weighing nearly three tons, that's been orbiting since 1990.

However, communication was lost in 1999, and the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) has lost control. There were suggestions at the time that the satellite's failure was triggered by a hacking attack from Russia.

ROSAT's now orbiting at around 270km above the Earth, descending slowly.

It's unlikely to burn up entirely on re-entry, because of the large amount of ceramics and glass used in construction - and this could mean that many pieces of debris would be razor-sharp.

Diamond Studs

Read more

Smallest Full Moon of 2011 Occurs Tuesday

2011-10-11T05:04:00.000-07:00

In my more than 40 years as an amateur astronomer, I've given countless numbers of people views of a variety of celestial objects through telescopes. And most people usually will tell me that the first object in the sky that attracted their attention as youngsters was the ever-changing moon.

Many may recall the attention given to our nearest neighbor in space in March when that months' full moon very nearly coincided with the lunar perigee — the point in the moon's orbit in which it is nearest to Earth. At a distance of 221,565 miles (356,575 kilometers), some media outlets even christened it the "Supermoon" of 2011 because of its unusual closeness.

But on Tuesday night (Oct. 11) we will have the astronomical opposite of a supermoon. At 10:06 p.m. EDT (0206 GMT), the moon will officially turn full, but it will be the smallest full moon of 2011.

The sky map of the smallest full moon of the year shows where it will appear on Tuesday night when it reaches its full phase.

Less than 10 hours after the October full moon peaks, at 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT) on Wednesday, the moon will arrive at the apogee of its orbit (the farthest point from Earth each month), which in October is a distance of 252,546 miles (406,434 km). That's only 154 miles (248 km) shy of the moon's absolute farthest point from Earth it can reach.

A puny full moon
Looking at the moon during Tuesday night, perhaps you will be struck by the noticeably small size of the moon's disk, even when it's near the horizon (which is supposed to make it appear larger as a result of the familiar "moon illusion" effect).

Last March, when the full moon was at perigee, some reported it as looking absolutely enormous as it emerged from above the eastern horizon. Not so on Tuesday, however, because the moon will very close to apogee, making this the smallest full moon of 2011.

By coincidence, October's full moon comes just days after the second annual International Observe the Moon Night on Oct. 8, in which skywatchers participated in hundreds of lunar observing events at skywatching parties around the world.

In fact, it will appear 12.3 percent smaller than the so-called supermoon of March 2011.

And because it is near its maximum distance from the Earth when full, the moon will also be traveling relatively slowly in its orbit. So both effects will combine to make its motion against the background stars especially small from night to night.

As a result, to the casual skywatcher it will seem that the moon is full for not just one night, but for three nights in a row: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The defect of illumination on the moon's disk — or put another way, the dark sliver near the edge — will be very slight on Monday and Wednesday night.

Diamond Earring Studs

Read more

New Solar Orbiter Mission in Development by NASA

2011-10-09T22:09:00.000-07:00

According to a recent press release from the space agency, NASA, in a joint effort with the European Space Agency (ESA), are planning to develop new instruments which will be used on a new mission to study our Sun. Launch is currently scheduled for 2017.

Known as the Solar Orbiter mission, the new spacecraft focus its instruments on the sun from a distance comparable to the orbit of the planet Mercury. At this unprecedented close proximity to the Sun of only about 21 million miles, the Solar Orbiter will be able to much more accurately analyze the sun and help to forecast space weather and solar flares.

With humanity’s ever increasing reliance on electricity and electronics for navigation and communication, solar flares and other disturbances from the sun are a much larger concern than in the past. The orbiter will give scientists an earlier warning of impending solar storm, and give planners on the ground more time to prepare.

“Solar Orbiter is an exciting mission that will improve our understanding of the sun and its environment,” said Barbara Giles, director for NASA’s Heliophysics Division in Washington. “This collaboration will create a new chapter in heliophysics research and continue a strong partnership with the international science community to complement future robotic and human exploration activities.”

The two $80 million instruments currently at the focus of the development are:

- The Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI), which will provide revolutionary measurements to pinpoint coronal mass ejections or CMEs. CMEs are space weather events with violent solar eruptions that travel from 60 miles per second to more than 2,000 miles per second with masses greater than a few billion tons. Russell Howard from the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington is principal investigator.

- The Heavy Ion Sensor (HIS)

Diamond Earring studs

Read more

ESA To Collaborate with NASA on Solar Science Mission

2011-10-06T20:24:00.000-07:00

On October 4, 2011, the European Space Agency announced it's two next science missions, including Solar Orbiter, a spacecraft geared to study the powerful influence of the sun. Solar Orbiter will be an ESA-led mission, with strong NASA contributions managed from Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Solar Orbiter will venture closer to the Sun than any previous mission. The spacecraft will also carry advanced instrumentation that will help untangle how activity on the sun sends out radiation, particles and magnetic fields that can affect Earth's magnetic environment, causing aurora, or potentially damaging satellites, interfering with GPS communications or even Earth's electrical power grids.

"Solar Orbiter will use multiple gravity assists from Venus to tilt its orbit until it can see the poles of the Sun, and that's never been done before," said Chris St. Cyr, NASA's project scientist for Solar Orbiter at Goddard. "A full view of the solar poles will help us understand how the sun's magnetic poles reverse direction every 11 years, causing giant eruptions and flares, called space weather, that can affect the rest of the solar system."

Being so close to the sun also means that the Solar Orbiter will stay over a given area of the solar surface for a longer time, allowing the instruments to track the evolution of sunspots, active regions, coronal holes and other solar activity far longer than has been done before.

Solar Orbiter is also designed to make major breakthroughs in our understanding of how the sun generates and propels the flow of particles in which the planets are bathed, known as the solar wind. Solar activity and solar eruptions create strong perturbations in this wind, triggering spectacular auroral displays on Earth and other planets. Solar Orbiter will be close enough to the sun to both observe the details of how the solar wind is accelerated off the sun and to sample the wind shortly after it leaves the surface.

Diamond earring studs

Read more

Best Evidence Yet That Comets Delivered Water for Earth’s Oceans

2011-10-05T22:37:00.000-07:00

The idea isn’t new that Earth’s oceans originated from comets bombarding our planet back in its early days. But astronomers have now found the best evidence yet for this scenario. The Herschel infrared space observatory detected that comet Hartley 2, which originates from the distant Kuiper Belt, contains water with the same chemical signature as Earth’s oceans.

“Our results with Herschel suggest that comets could have played a major role in bringing vast amounts of water to an early Earth,” said Dariusz Lis, senior research associate in physics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and co-author of a new paper in the journal Nature, published online on Oct. 5. “This finding substantially expands the reservoir of Earth ocean-like water in the solar system to now include icy bodies originating in the Kuiper Belt.”

Previous looks at various other comets showed water content different from Earth’s oceans, with deuterium levels around twice that of Earth’s oceans, but those comets came from the Oort Cloud. Scientists theorized that if comets of this kind had collided with Earth, they could not have contributed more than a few percent of Earth’s water.

But Herschel’s observations of Hartley 2 are the first in-depth look at water in a comet from the Kuiper Belt — home of icy, rocky bodies that includes dwarf planets and innumerable comets — and it showed a surprising difference.

Using HIFI, a highly sensitive infrared spectrometer, Herschel peered into the comet’s coma, or thin, gaseous atmosphere, and found that Hartley 2 possessed half as much “heavy water” as other comets analyzed to date. In heavy water, one of the two normal hydrogen atoms has been replaced by the heavy hydrogen isotope known as deuterium. The ratio between heavy water and light, or regular, water in Hartley 2 is the same as the water on Earth’s surface.

“Comet Hartley’s deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio is almost exactly the same as the water in Earth’s oceans,” says Paul Hartogh, Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, who led the international team of astronomers in this study.

The amount of heavy water in a comet is related to the environment where the comet formed, and by comparing the deuterium to hydrogen ratio found in the water in Earth’s oceans with that in extraterrestrial objects, astronomers were hoping to identify the origin of our water.

Diamond earring studs

Read more

Giant Asteroid Vesta Has Mountain Taller Than Anything on Earth

2011-10-04T01:08:00.000-07:00

A NASA spacecraft orbiting the asteroid Vesta is revealing new details about the huge space rock's surface, including a massive mountain that rises taller than Mt. Everest on Earth.

NASA's Dawn probe has been circling Vesta since mid-July, when it arrived in the asteroid belt that orbits the sun between Mars and Jupiter. So far, Dawn has beamed back surprising views of Vesta that revealed an enormous mountain in the asteroid's southern hemisphere and show that its crater surface is incredibly diverse place.

"We are learning many amazing things about Vesta, which we call the smallest terrestrial planet," Chris Russell, principal investigator of the Dawn mission, said in a statement. "Like Earth, Mars, Venus and Mercury, Vesta has ancient basaltic lava flows on the surface and a large iron core … The south polar mountain is larger than the big island of Hawaii, the largest mountain on Earth, as measured from the ocean floor. It is almost as high as the highest mountain in the solar system, the shield volcano Olympus Mons on Mars."

Vesta's giant southern mountain is nearly as tall as Olympus Mons, the largest mountain (and volcano) in the solar system, which soars about 15 miles (24 kilometers) above the surface. On Earth, the largest terrestrial volcano is Mauna Loa in Hawaii, which rises up 6 miles (9 km) high, including the portion of the volcano that extends underwater to the sea floor. Mount Everest, the tallest mountain above sea level on Earth, is a paltry 5.5 miles (8.85 km) tall.

Dawn also revealed that Vesta's surface appears to be much rougher than most asteroids in the main asteroid belt, which is a vast region full of space rocks between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

Additionally, preliminary estimates of crater age dates on Vesta suggest that regions in the southern hemisphere are far younger than in the north — with some areas in the southern hemisphere only about 1 to 2 billion years old.

The findings were presented today at the 2011 European Planetary Science Congress and the Division for Planetary Sciences Joint Meeting in Nantes, France.

Diamond stud

Read more

Private Space Race On to Launch US Astronauts for NASA

2011-10-03T00:55:00.000-07:00

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Private space companies will launch American astronauts into orbit years before NASA is ready to do so on its own again, but the race to be the first commercial space taxi service is still far from won.

NASA's next crew-carrying rocket, the heavy-lift Space Launch System, will blast off on its first test flight in 2017 at the earliest, agency officials have said. But a handful of private companies say they're on schedule to begin lofting astronauts by 2015 — or perhaps even earlier.

"We believe we'll be ready in three years," said Gwynne Shotwell, president of Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (also known as SpaceX).

Encouraging private spaceflight
NASA is happy about the progress SpaceX and other companies seem to be making. The agency is not in competition with these firms, after all; rather, NASA is encouraging them to develop their capabilities, via its Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program.

In the last several years, the agency has given money to a handful of firms — including SpaceX, Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corp. and Blue Origin — in two rounds of funding. The goal is to help establish American means of human transportation to space again, an ability the nation has lacked since the retirement of NASA's space shuttle fleet in July.

Currently, the United States is completely dependent on Russian Soyuz vehicles to ferry its astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

"Obviously, our focus is to close the gap," said Ed Mango, NASA's CCDev program manager. "We want an American-led system in order to get us back into low-Earth orbit, just like we've had for the last 30 years."

NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) isn't the answer for low-Earth orbit. The heavy-lift SLS is designed to launch the agency's crew-carrying Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle toward deep space destinations such as asteroids and Mars.

Read more

Another Dead Satellite to Crash Land in November

2011-09-30T01:27:00.001-07:00

A defunct NASA satellite that fell to Earth last week sparked some worldwide buzz, but it's not the only spacecraft falling out of space.

The decommissioned German X-ray space observatory, called the Roentgen Satellite or ROSAT, will tumble to Earth sometime in early November, but it's still too early to pinpoint exactly when and where debris from the satellite will land, according to officials at the German Aerospace Center.

The 2.4-ton spacecraft's orbit extends from the latitudes of 53 degrees north and south, which means the satellite could fall anywhere over a huge swath of the planet — stretching from Canada to South America, German Aerospace officials said. [6 Biggest Uncontrolled Spacecraft Falls From Space]

The latest estimates suggest that up to 30 large pieces of the satellite could survive the intense and scorching journey through Earth's atmosphere. In all, about 1.6 tons of the satellite components could reach the surface of the Earth, according to German Aerospace officials.

The re-entry will be similar to NASA's 6-ton Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), which plunged into the southern Pacific Ocean on Saturday (Sept. 24).

ROSAT coming home

In 1998, ROSAT's star tracker failed, which caused its onboard camera to be pointed directly at the sun. The event permanently damaged the spacecraft and ROSAT was officially decommissioned in February 1999.

Scientists are actively tracking the dead satellite, but many of the details will remain uncertain until roughly two hours before it hits Earth.

"It is not possible to accurately predict ROSAT's re-entry," Heiner Klinkrad, head of the Space Debris Office at the European Space Agency, said in a webcast posted on the German Aerospace Center's website. "The uncertainty will decrease as the moment of re-entry approaches. It will not be possible to make any kind of reliable forecast about where the satellite will actually come down until about one or two hours before the fact."

It will, however, be possible to rule out certain geographical regions from the potential drop zone about a day in advance, Klinkrad said. The largest piece of debris is expected to be the telescope's heat resistant mirror.

"Generally speaking, whenever a satellite re-enters the atmosphere, about 20 to 40 percent of its mass actually reaches the Earth’s surface," Klinkrad said. "In the case of ROSAT, this figure could be slightly higher because one of its characteristic features is that it carries heat-resistant mirror structures on board." [Related: Falling Satellites & Space Junk: Q&A with Orbital Debris Expert]

Diamond stud

Read more

NASA's Chandra Finds Nearest Pair of Supermassive Black Holes

2011-09-29T01:17:00.000-07:00

Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory discovered the first pair of supermassive black holes in a spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way. Approximately 160 million light years from Earth, the pair is the nearest known such phenomenon.

The black holes are located near the center of the spiral galaxy NGC 3393. Separated by only 490 light years, the black holes are likely the remnant of a merger of two galaxies of unequal mass a billion or more years ago.

"If this galaxy wasn't so close, we'd have no chance of separating the two black holes the way we have," said Pepi Fabbiano of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in Cambridge, Mass., who led the study that appears in this week's online issue of the journal Nature. "Since this galaxy was right under our noses by cosmic standards, it makes us wonder how many of these black hole pairs we've been missing."

Previous observations in X-rays and at other wavelengths indicated that a single supermassive black hole existed in the center of NGC 3393. However, a long look by Chandra allowed the researchers to detect and separate the dual black holes. Both black holes are actively growing and emitting X-rays as gas falls towards them and becomes hotter.

When two equal-sized spiral galaxies merge, astronomers think it should result in the formation of a black hole pair and a galaxy with a disrupted appearance and intense star formation. A well-known example is the pair of supermassive black holes in NGC 6240, which is located about 330 million light years from Earth.

However, NGC 3393 is a well-organized spiral galaxy, and its central bulge is dominated by old stars. These are unusual properties for a galaxy containing a pair of black holes. Instead, NGC 3393 may be the first known instance where the merger of a large galaxy and a much smaller one, dubbed a "minor merger" by scientists, has resulted in the formation of a pair of supermassive black holes. In fact, some theories say that minor mergers should be the most common way for black hole pairs to form, but good candidates have been difficult to find because the merged galaxy is expected to look so typical.

"The two galaxies have merged without a trace of the earlier collision, apart from the two black holes," said co-author Junfeng Wang, also from CfA. "If there was a mismatch in size between the two galaxies it wouldn't be a surprise for the bigger one to survive unscathed."

If this was a minor merger, the black hole in the smaller galaxy should have had a smaller mass than the other black hole before their host galaxies started to collide. Good estimates of the masses of both black holes are not yet available to test this idea, although the observations do show that both black holes are more massive than about a million suns. Assuming a minor merger occurred, the black holes should eventually merge after about a billion years.

Both of the supermassive black holes are heavily obscured by dust and gas, which makes them difficult to observe in optical light. Because X-rays are more energetic, they can penetrate this obscuring material. Chandra's X-ray spectra show clear signatures of a pair of supermassive black holes.

Read more

NASA Plans High-Speed Space Communications System

2011-09-28T04:34:00.000-07:00

NASA is working on a laser-based optical communications system that will drastically reduce the time it takes to transmit multimedia from space, with data moving at rates up to 100 times faster than current systems.

The space agency aims to show off a high-speed communications system through a Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) in 2016. LCRD is one of three next-generation space technologies NASA is working on as part of its plans to create more sophisticated solutions to meet goals for the future of its space program.

Now that NASA has retired its space shuttle program, the agency aims to send manned spacecraft beyond low-Earth orbit and push the boundaries of current space communications, among other aims.

To the latter point, while it currently takes 90 minutes to transmit high-resolution images from Mars, LCRD will allow for actual streaming of high-definition video from distances beyond the moon, according to the space agency.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center came up the idea for the LCRD, which is now being developed by a cross-organizational team that also includes NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Lincoln Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. NASA will fly the system into space on a commercial communications satellite developed by Space Systems/Loral.

Dave Israel, who is leading the team developing the network, compared current NASA space communications capability to dial-up Internet speeds. Just as the home Internet user "hit the wall" with that technology, he said in a statement that NASA "is approaching the limit of what its existing communications network can handle."

LCRD, on the other hand, will be more comparable to a land-based optical network such as FIOS from Verizon, Israel added.

Read more

Star Blasts Planet With X-rays

2011-09-26T22:27:00.000-07:00

A nearby star is pummeling a companion planet with a barrage of X-rays 100,000 times more intense than the Earth receives from the sun.

New data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope suggest that high-energy radiation is evaporating about 5 million tons of matter from the planet every second. This result gives insight into the difficult survival path for some planets.

The planet, known as CoRoT-2b, has a mass about three times that of Jupiter -- 1,000 times that of Earth -- and orbits its parent star, CoRoT-2a at a distance roughly 10 times the distance between Earth and the moon.

The CoRoT-2 star and planet -- so named because the French Space Agency’s Convection, Rotation and planetary Transits, or CoRoT, satellite discovered them in 2008 -- is a relatively nearby neighbor of the solar system at a distance of 880 light years.

"This planet is being absolutely fried by its star," said Sebastian Schroeter of the University of Hamburg in Germany. "What may be even stranger is that this planet may be affecting the behavior of the star that is blasting it."

According to optical and X-ray data, the CoRoT-2 system is estimated to be between about 100 million and 300 million years old, meaning that the star is fully formed. The Chandra observations show that CoRoT-2a is a very active star, with bright X-ray emission produced by powerful, turbulent magnetic fields. Such strong activity is usually found in much younger stars.

Read more

Huge UARS Satellite's Fall From Space Captivates Skywatchers, Sparks Hoaxes

2011-09-25T22:26:00.000-07:00

Skywatchers around the world were hoping for some unique views overnight Friday (Sept. 23), as a NASA satellite plunged to Earth on its final scorching journey through the atmosphere.

The 6.5-ton Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS, most likely pierced through Earth's atmospheric shield within 20 minutes of 12:16 a.m. EDT Saturday (0416 GMT), according to NASA officials. The agency is unable to confirm the precise time and location of the satellite's re-entry, but orbital debris scientists said that the satellite would have been flying over the vast Pacific Ocean at the time, well away from the North American coastline.

Throughout the night, rumors circulated that the defunct satellite crashed over Alberta, Canada, raining debris on the small town of Okotoks, which lies south of Calgary. Local authorities who were called to investigate later called the claims a hoax. [6 Biggest Spacecraft to Fall Uncontrolled From Space]

Read more

Landing of Dead NASA Satellite 'Too Early to Predict': NASA

2011-09-22T04:04:00.000-07:00

A dead 6.5 ton NASA UARS satellite would make its re-entry into Earth's atmosphere on Friday, Sept. 23, bringing along a chance to watch a spectacular sky show. But NASA is still not sure where on Earth the satellite would land.

"It is still too early to predict the time and location of re-entry with any more certainty, but predictions will become more refined in the next 24 to 48 hours," National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said in a statement.

NASA added that the debris from the defunct satellite would not cause harm to humans.

NASA conducted a detailed re-entry risk assessment for UARS in 2002 and it showed that the debris from UARS is not harmful to human beings. Following are the excerpts of the study:

* Number of potentially hazardous objects expected to survive: 26

* Total mass of objects expected to survive: 532 kg

* Estimated human casualty risk (updated to 2011): About 1 in 3200

Read more

Tonnes of satellite space junk to pelt earth on weekend

2011-09-20T22:46:00.000-07:00

Look out for a six-tonne satellite plummeting from the sky this weekend.

NASA scientists are doing their best to predict exactly when and where it will fall.

For now, they believe the earliest it will hit is Friday (NZ time), while the latest is Sunday.

Scientists put the odds of it hitting someone at 1-in-3200.

Over the years, space debris has fallen into the ocean or empty spaces.

If you do come across what you think may be a satellite piece, NASA doesn't want you to pick it up.

Or sell it on eBay.

As US government-owned property, it should be returned to its rightful owner – by being reported to police.

The 20-year-old research satellite is expected to break into more than 100 pieces as it enters the atmosphere, most of it burning up, the New Zealand Herald reports.

Twenty-six of the heaviest metal parts are expected to reach Earth, the biggest chunk weighing about 136 kilograms. The debris could be scattered over an area about 800 kilometres long.

Read more

Origin of Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Remains a Mystery

2011-09-20T03:40:00.000-07:00

PASADENA, Calif. -- Observations from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission indicate the family of asteroids some believed was responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs is not likely the culprit, keeping open the case on one of Earth's greatest mysteries.

While scientists are confident a large asteroid crashed into Earth approximately 65 million years ago, leading to the extinction of dinosaurs and some other life forms on our planet, they do not know exactly where the asteroid came from or how it made its way to Earth. A 2007 study using visible-light data from ground-based telescopes first suggested the remnant of a huge asteroid, known as Baptistina, as a possible suspect.

According to that theory, Baptistina crashed into another asteroid in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter about 160 million years ago. The collision sent shattered pieces as big as mountains flying. One of those pieces was believed to have impacted Earth, causing the dinosaurs' extinction.

Since this scenario was first proposed, evidence developed that the so-called Baptistina family of asteroids was not the responsible party. With the new infrared observations from WISE, astronomers say Baptistina may finally be ruled out.

"As a result of the WISE science team's investigation, the demise of the dinosaurs remains in the cold case files," said Lindley Johnson, program executive for the Near Earth Object (NEO) Observation Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The original calculations with visible light estimated the size and reflectivity of the Baptistina family members, leading to estimates of their age, but we now know those estimates were off. With infrared light, WISE was able to get a more accurate estimate, which throws the timing of the Baptistina theory into question."

WISE surveyed the entire celestial sky twice in infrared light from January 2010 to February 2011. The asteroid-hunting portion of the mission, called NEOWISE, used the data to catalogue more than 157,000 asteroids in the main belt and discovered more than 33,000 new ones.

Visible light reflects off an asteroid. Without knowing how reflective the surface of the asteroid is, it's hard to accurately establish size. Infrared observations allow a more accurate size estimate. They detect infrared light coming from the asteroid itself, which is related to the body's temperature and size. Once the size is known, the object's reflectivity can be re-calculated by combining infrared with visible-light data.

The NEOWISE team measured the reflectivity and the size of about 120,000 asteroids in the main belt, including 1,056 members of the Baptistina family. The scientists calculated the original parent Baptistina asteroid actually broke up closer to 80 million years ago, half as long as originally proposed.

This calculation was possible because the size and reflectivity of the asteroid family members indicate how much time would have been required to reach their current locations -- larger asteroids would not disperse in their orbits as fast as smaller ones. The results revealed a chunk of the original Baptistina asteroid needed to hit Earth in less time than previously believed, in just about 15 million years, to cause the extinction of the dinosaurs.

"This doesn't give the remnants from the collision very much time to move into a resonance spot, and get flung down to Earth 65 million years ago," said Amy Mainzer, a co-author of a new study appearing in the Astrophysical Journal and the principal investigator of NEOWISE at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena. Calif. "This process is thought to normally take many tens of millions of years." Resonances are areas in the main belt where gravity nudges from Jupiter and Saturn can act like a pinball machine to fling asteroids out of the main belt and into the region near Earth.

Read more

NASA satellite expected to crash to Earth in days

2011-09-19T01:06:00.000-07:00

The sky is not falling. A 12,500-pound NASA satellite the size of a school bus is, though.

It's the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, and it's tumbling in orbit and succumbing to Earth's gravity. It will crash to the surface Friday.

Or maybe Thursday. Or Saturday.

Out-of-control crashing satellites don't lend themselves to exact estimates even for the precision-minded folks at NASA. The uncertainty about the "when" makes the "where" all the trickier, because a small change in the timing of the re-entry translates into thousands of miles of difference in the crash site.

As of the moment, NASA says the 35-foot-long satellite will crash somewhere between 57 degrees north latitude and 57 degrees south latitude - a projected crash zone that covers most of the planet, and particularly the inhabited parts. In this hemisphere, that includes everyone living between northern Newfoundland and the frigid ocean beyond the last point of land in South America.

Polar bears and Antarctic scientists are safe.

It's the biggest piece of NASA space junk to fall to Earth in more than 30 years. It should create a light show. The satellite will partially burn up during re-entry, and, by NASA's calculation, break into about 100 pieces, creating fireballs that should be visible even in daytime.

An estimated 26 of those pieces will survive the re-entry burn and will spray themselves in a linear debris field 500 miles long. The largest chunk should weigh about 300 pounds.

As the Friday-ish crash gets closer, NASA will refine its estimate of timing and location, but the fudge factor will remain high.

"There are too many variations on solar activity which affect the atmosphere, the drag on the vehicle," said Nicholas Johnson, chief scientist for orbital debris at NASA.

The good news is that the satellite will probably splatter into the open ocean, because Earth is a water planet. And humans, for all their sprawl, occupy a very limited portion of its surface.

Read more

Satellite falls faster than forecast

2011-09-15T22:35:00.000-07:00

NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite is now expected to fall to Earth sometime between Sept. 23 and 25, orbital experts reported today.

That's toward the early end of the original projections for UARS' fiery descent: Last week, when NASA announced that the long-defunct, six-ton satellite would crash, the time frame was given as late September to early October. That wide window of possibilities was due to the uncertainties over atmospheric conditions. Now the picture is becoming clearer, said Nicholas Johnson, head of NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office at Johnson Space Center in Texas.

"The sun has become very active since the beginning of this week, and it's accelerating the prediction," he told me.

Higher solar activity heats and expands the upper atmosphere, creating more drag for satellites in decaying orbits. The increased drag pulls down those satellites more quickly — and that's what's behind the earlier prediction.

NASA's UARS status page said the bus-sized satellite's orbit was 143 by 158 miles (230 by 255 kilometers) as of today, compared with 155 by 174 miles (250 by 280 kilometers) a week ago. Johnson said the status page would be updated again on Friday.

Read more

Behind the Scenes of NASA’s Upcoming MMORPG

2011-09-13T22:26:00.000-07:00

These days, nearly every game company is trying to get their fingers in the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) pie. Given the past successes of games like Ultima Online and Everquest and the current success of games like EVE Online and World of Warcraft, it’s no surprise that companies want try to create the next “killer app” of the MMORPG market.

One such game company that will be launching a new game is the company partnered with NASA to develop a space-based MMORPG for the space agency. Having raised nearly $40,000 in pledged funding via kickstarter, the company aims to start beta testing their offering some time next year.

So what does this new MMORPG do differently that will attract and retain paying customers? What makes Astronaut: Moon, Mars and Beyond different from say, EVE Online, Star Trek Online, or Star Wars Galaxies?

When a game developer becomes associated with a “big-name” property, expectations from both fans and developers can be quite high. Despite securing a license to create a game based on the Stargate franchise, a game development company never released the game and eventually ended up in bankruptcy. Star Trek Online, despite being one of the most anticipated MMORPG franchises went through two developers and when finally released had less than stellar sales. Of course, many fans of MMORPG’s are all too familiar with the myriad issues that plagued Star Wars Galaxies.

Read More

Twisted Tale of our Galaxy's Ring

2011-07-19T23:34:00.001-07:00

New observations from the Herschel Space Observatory show a bizarre, twisted ring of dense gas at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Only a few portions of the ring, which stretches across more than 600 light-years, were known before. Herschel's view reveals the entire ring for the first time, and a strange kink that has astronomers scratching their heads.

"We have looked at this region at the center of the Milky Way many times before in the infrared," said Alberto Noriega-Crespo of NASA's Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "But when we looked at the high-resolution images using Herschel’s sub-millimeter wavelengths, the presence of a ring is quite clear." Noriega-Crespo is co-author of a new paper on the ring published in a recent issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The Herschel Space Observatory is a European Space Agency-led mission with important NASA contributions. It sees infrared and sub-millimeter light, which can readily penetrate through the dust hovering between the bustling center of our galaxy and us. Herschel's detectors are also suited to see the coldest stuff in our galaxy.

When astronomers turned the giant telescope to look at the center of our galaxy, it captured unprecedented views of its inner ring -- a dense tube of cold gas mixed with dust, where new stars are forming.

Astronomers were shocked by what they saw -- the ring, which is in the plane of our galaxy, looked more like an infinity symbol with two lobes pointing to the side. In fact, they later determined the ring was torqued in the middle, so it only appears to have two lobes. To picture the structure, imagine holding a stiff, elliptical band and twisting the ends in opposite directions, so that one side comes up a bit.

"This is what is so exciting about launching a new space telescope like Herschel," said Sergio Molinari of the Institute of Space Physics in Rome, Italy, lead author of the new paper. "We have a new and exciting mystery on our hands, right at the center of our own galaxy."

Observations with the ground-based Nobeyama Radio Observatory in Japan complemented the Herschel results by determining the velocity of the denser gas in the ring. The radio results demonstrate that the ring is moving together as a unit, at the same speed relative to the rest of the galaxy.

The ring lies at the center of our Milky Way's bar -- a bar-shaped region of stars at the center of its spidery spiral arms. This bar is actually inside an even larger ring. Other galaxies have similar bars and rings. A classic example of a ring inside a bar is in the galaxy NGC 1097, imaged here by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The ring glows brightly in the center of the galaxy's large bar structure. It is not known if that ring has a kink or not.

The details of how bars and rings form in spiral galaxies are not well understood, but computer simulations demonstrate how gravitational interactions can produce the structures. Some theories hold that bars arise out of gravitational interactions between galaxies. For example, the bar at the center of our Milky Way might have been influenced by our largest neighbor galaxy, Andromeda.

The twist in the ring is not the only mystery to come out of the new Herschel observations. Astronomers say that the center of the torqued portion of the ring is not where the center of the galaxy is thought to be, but slightly offset. The center of our galaxy is considered to be around "Sagittarius A*," where a massive black hole lies. According to Noriega-Crespo, it's not clear why the center of the ring doesn't match up with the assumed center of our galaxy. "There's still so much about our galaxy to discover," he said.

read more

Gas Giant Spacecraft All Gassed Up

2011-07-13T02:22:00.000-07:00

Juno Mission Status Update

The Juno spacecraft completed hydrazine fuel loading, oxidizer loading and final tank pressurizations this week, and now the complete propulsion system is ready for the trip to Jupiter. The spacecraft is currently at the Astrotech processing facility in Titusville, Fla.

Hydrazine is the fuel of choice for most spacecraft because of its stored energy. When the fuel is mixed with the oxidizer, the liquid ignites in the propulsion system's main engine to perform the spacecraft's four large maneuvers. One of these maneuvers includes inserting the spacecraft into orbit around Jupiter in 2016.

With the fueling completion, the spacecraft is 99 percent ready for launch. Once the final thermal blanket closeouts and wet spin tests are complete, the spacecraft will be 100 percent ready for installation onto the Atlas 551 launch vehicle.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. Launch management for the mission is the responsibility of NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

read more

SpaceShipTwo a rocket plane designed to take tourists on suborbital flights

2011-06-27T23:55:00.000-07:00

SpaceShipTwo, a privately built rocket plane designed to take tourists on suborbital flights, continues to chalk up more flight time as it glides through the skies over the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.

Another successful glide of the first SpaceShip Two craft, christened VSS Enterprise, took place June 23, marking the 14th glide flight test of the vessel — an 8-minute, 55-second free fall after midair release from its mothership. The test came a week after VSS Enterprise proved it could be flown on back-to-back days.

The two-pilot SpaceShipTwo is designed to rocket six paying passengers on a suborbital trajectory to space without making a full orbit around the Earth. The ride to the edge of space will come at a per-seat price of $200,000.

UrtheCast Announces New Space Venture

2011-06-24T03:24:00.001-07:00

Joint Canadian, Russian and UK Space Venture to Install World's First Ever High Definition Streaming Video Cameras on the International Space Station

UrtheCast is building, launching, and operating the world's first and only high definition streaming video cameras being installed on the International Space Station (ISS).

UrtheCast will supply video data and imagery of Earth collected by two HD cameras on the Russian module of the Space Station. This data and imagery will be down-linked to ground stations around the planet and then displayed in real time on the Internet and distributed directly to UrtheCast's exclusive partners and customers.

The UrtheCast web platform will allow Users to constantly track the location of the Space Station, anticipating when it will pass over a particular geographic location. Users will be able to search for videos of a particular location, type, or theme and will have the ability to interact with the HD video feed from the UrtheCast servers. They will be able to zoom in and out, virtually steer the camera from side to side, rewind, and fast forward as they check out areas and things of interest on Earth. UK based Rutherford Appleton Labs is building two high definition cameras. A medium resolution camera will provide a three colour image with a swath of 45 kilometers and a resolution of 5.5 meters. The high-resolution camera will offer a video image with a frame rate of 3.25 frames per second with a resolution that is comparable to much of Google Earth. This will allow Users to see man-made objects and groups of people.

As a result of all this unique functionality, the UrtheCast web platform will spark a great deal of awareness, creativity, and unique user events from around the world. The UrtheCast website will feel like a blend of Google Earth with the video playback and search functionality of YouTube. The UrtheCast web platform will combine a consumer centric website, mobile application for smart phones, and an open Application Program Interface (API). The API enables third party developers to create their own applications and upload them to the UrtheCast web platform.

"Users will be able to view Earth from space. It will operate seamlessly with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter," explains Scott Larson, President of UrtheCast. ISS is a low orbit, human-inhabited satellite. The station travels at 26,000 km/h, orbiting Earth sixteen times per day, at an altitude of approximately 350 km. The ISS is a collaborative project between the Russian, Canadian European, Japanese, and US space agencies. UrtheCast has signed an exclusive agreement with RSC Energia, who maintains operational control of the Russian segment on the ISS. RSC Energia will take UrtheCast's cameras, install them on the outside of the ISS, and provide the necessary maintenance and transfer of the data. The cameras are being built by UK based Rutherford Appleton Laboratories (RAL), who is a world leader in building cameras for aerospace and satellite purposes.

"Being part of a project that not only taps into the recent renewed interest in space, but also provides a connection between people and the rest of the world is what is most intriguing about this project," Richard Holdaway Director, RAL Space.

UrtheCast will officially launch this project in Calgary on June 28th at 12:00pm. Dr. Dave Williams, one of NASA's most accomplished astronauts, will be speaking at the launch at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce.

"The UrtheCast camera will support the ISS and continue to inspire youth to pursue advanced studies in space sciences and spark interest in science, technology, engineering and the environment," says Dr.Williams.

Dr. Williams blasted into space aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia, and again on Shuttle Endeavour where he walked out into the great beyond. He has set records in space walking and has logged more than 687 hours in space. He will be speaking about space flight, space exploration, space science and technology, environmental stewardship and educational awareness as it relates to seeing the Earth from Space. "This unprecedented UrtheCast initiative is helping position Canada as a leading space-faring nation and driving science and innovation while actively inspiring young people across our country to take their place as members of Canada's next space generation," stated Dr. Williams.

Having a Solar Blast

2011-06-07T22:10:00.000-07:00

The Sun unleashed an M-2 (medium-sized) solar flare, an S1-class (minor) radiation storm and a spectacular coronal mass ejection (CME) on June 7, 2011 from sunspot complex 1226-1227. The large cloud of particles mushroomed up and fell back down looking as if it covered an area of almost half the solar surface.

The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) observed the flare's peak at 1:41a.m. ET (0641 UT). SDO recorded these images (above) in extreme ultraviolet light that show a very large eruption of cool gas. It is somewhat unique because at many places in the eruption there seems to be even cooler material -- at temperatures less than 80,000 K. All of the solar Heliophysics System Observatory missions captured the event.

When viewed in Solar and Heliospheric Observatory's (SOHO) coronagraphs (top right), the event shows bright plasma and high-energy particles roaring from the Sun.

Also to the right are links to the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) Ahead and Behind coronograph videos showing the CME expansion as viewed from each side of the sun. The STEREO Ahead satellite precedes the Earth as it circles the Sun. The STEREO Behind satellite follows behind the Earth in it's orbit of the Sun.

This not-squarely Earth-directed CME is moving at 1400 km/s according to NASA models. The CME should deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field during the late hours of June 8th or June 9th. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras when the CME arrives.

NASA Satellite Data Reveals Joplin Tornado Track

2011-06-05T21:18:00.000-07:00

The image shows the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer, or ASTER, satellite data acquired on May 30, 2011, showing the damage track resulting from for the EF-5 tornado associated with the May 22, 2011, Joplin, Mo. storm. The complex pattern of ASTER data indicate variability in land use characterized by colors in this three-channel composite. Vegetated areas are shown in red and green, urban areas are aqua and the damage track from the tornado is also aqua. Clouds are white and cloud shadows are dark in color. The ASTER data here shows the tornado damage scar, aqua in color, left by the violent tornado as damage disrupts other, more typical land use patterns. The variation in width is likely correlated to tornado intensity. The tornado abruptly moved in a more southeasterly direction to the east of the city as is somewhat apparent through the clouds in the ASTER imagery.

This image was created by the NASA Short-term Prediction Research and Transition, or SPoRT, Center at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., using ASTER data provided courtesy of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.; the United States Geological Survey Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center in Sioux Falls, S.D.; Japan’s Earth Remote Sensing Data Analysis Center in Tokyo, Japan; the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, along with the Japan Research Observation System Organization. Final ASTER imagery was produced using resources of the Nebula Cloud Computing Platform, tiled, and displayed within Google Earth. Storm survey information was provided by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Springfield, Mo.

Last Female Shuttle Astronaut Available For Interviews

2011-06-02T22:10:00.000-07:00

NASA astronaut Sandra Magnus, who will fly on the last space shuttle mission next month, is available for live satellite interviews from 7 to 9 a.m. CDT on Monday, June 6. Shuttle Atlantis is targeted to launch July 8 with Magnus, Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialist Rex Walheim to deliver supplies and spare equipment to the International Space Station.After her first spaceflight in 2002, Magnus became the 34th out of 47 woman to fly aboard the shuttle, which launched the first American woman into space, Sally Ride, in 1983. With the upcoming STS-135 launch, Magnus will be the last female astronaut to fly on the storied vehicle.

Magnus is a native of Belleville, Ill. She earned a bachelor's and a master's from the University of Missouri-Rolla and a doctorate from the Georgia Institute of Technology.She is a veteran of two shuttle flights and a 4.5-month stay aboard the station as a member of the Expedition 18 crew. Her first spaceflight was aboard shuttle Atlantis on the STS-112 mission in October 2002. She later flew to the station aboard shuttle Endeavour on STS-126 in November 2008 and returned to Earth aboard shuttle Discovery on STS-119 in March 2009.

To arrange an interview, news media representatives must contact Karen Svetaka at 281-483-8684, no later than 4 p.m. on Friday, June 3. Participating media must tune into NASA Television's Live Interview Media Outlet channel. The channel is a digital satellite C-band downlink by uplink provider Americom.It is on satellite AMC 3, transponder 9C, located at 87 degrees west, downlink frequency 3865.5 MHz based on a standard C-band, horizontal downlink polarity. FEC is 3/4, data rate is 6.0 Mbps, symbol rate is 4.3404 Msps, transmission DVB-S, 4:2:0. NASA TV will air the Magnus interviews live. Video b-roll of STS-135 flight preparations will air June 6 at 6:30 a.m

Space Shuttle Endeavour Returns to Earth for Final Time Wednesday

2011-05-31T23:01:00.000-07:00

Space shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to return to Earth for the final time on Wednesday, June 1, completing a 16-day mission to outfit the International Space Station. If Endeavour lands Wednesday, it will have spent 299 days in space and traveled more than 122.8 million miles during its 25 flights. It launched on its first mission on May 7, 1992.Wednesday's landing opportunities at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida are at 2:35 a.m. and 4:11 a.m. EDT. Endeavour's entry flight control team led by Tony Ceccacci will evaluate weather conditions at Kennedy before permitting Endeavour to land.
If the shuttle is unable to return Wednesday, additional opportunities are available on Thursday at Kennedy and at backup landing site Edwards Air Force Base in California. For recorded updates about landing, call 321-867-2525.Approximately two hours after Endeavour lands, NASA officials will hold a briefing to discuss the mission. The participants will be:

Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations

Mike Moses, space shuttle launch integration manager

Mike Leinbach, space shuttle launch director

After touchdown, the astronauts will undergo routine physical examinations and meet with their families. The crew is expected to participate in a post-landing news conference about six hours after landing. Availability is subject to change due to real time circumstances. The news events will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency's website.

The Kennedy Press Site will be open for shuttle Atlantis’ rollout to Launch Pad 39A scheduled for 8 p.m. Tuesday and will remain open until 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.News media representatives who have been approved for STS-134 mission badges but have not picked them up yet may do so at NASA's Pass and Identification Building on State Road 3 on May 31 from 4 - 6 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. on June 1.The last bus will depart from the news center for the Shuttle Landing Facility one hour before landing.If the shuttle landing is diverted to Edwards after Wednesday, reporters should call the public affairs office at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at 661-276-3449. Dryden has limited facilities available for previously accredited journalists.

Spitzer Sees Crystal Rain in Infant Star Outer Clouds

2011-05-27T02:05:00.000-07:00

Tiny crystals of a green mineral called olivine are falling down like rain on a burgeoning star, according to observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. This is the first time such crystals have been observed in the dusty clouds of gas that collapse around forming stars. Astronomers are still debating how the crystals got there, but the most likely culprits are jets of gas blasting away from the embryonic star.

You need temperatures as hot as lava to make these crystals, said Tom Megeath of the University of Toledo in Ohio. He is the principal investigator of the research and the second author of a new study appearing in Astrophysical Journal Letters. "We propose that the crystals were cooked up near the surface of the forming star, and then carried up into the surrounding cloud where temperatures are much colder, and ultimately fell down again like glitter."

Spitzer's infrared detectors spotted the crystal rain around a distant, sun-like embryonic star, or protostar, referred to as HOPS-68, in the constellation Orion. The Spitzer observations were made before it used up its liquid coolant in May 2009 and began its warm mission.

Endeavour's Late Inspection Complete

2011-05-25T23:36:00.000-07:00

Space shuttle Endeavour's crew completed today's inspection of the shuttle's thermal protection system at 2:16 a.m. EDT. The crew began the inspection early. They used the 50-foot-long Orbiter Boom Sensor System to conduct a high fidelity, three-dimensional scan of areas of the shuttle that experience the highest heating during entry - the wing leading edges and nose cap. Managers and engineers in Mission Control will review the data to validate the heat shield's integrity and assure it has suffered no significant micrometeoroid and orbital debris damage.

The late inspection occurred earlier in the mission than normal, prior to undocking. As a consequence, the risk of re-entering with undetected micrometeoroid debris is increased but deemed acceptable.

During the mission's fourth and final spacewalk on Friday, the boom will be left at the space station to extend the robotic reach. Mike Fincke and Greg Chamitoff will prepare it for its stay by replacing its grapple fixture with a power data grapple fixture to enable its use as the new International Space Station Boom Assembly. Once on station without power and in the extended exposure to the vacuum of space, the boom's imagery sensors will cease functioning.

Asteroid Research Begins Under the Sea

2011-05-23T22:01:00.000-07:00

NASA is using a capability-driven approach to new concepts of human exploration for multiple destinations in our solar system; one of those destinations are near-Earth asteroids. Across the agency, experts are being called into action to develop solutions to this new challenge. In particular, the NEEMO 15 analog field test, slated for mid-October this year, will test new tools, techniques, time lining approaches and communication technologies which could be useful when humans approach asteroids in space.

During the week of May 9-15, 2011, the NEEMO 15 support team is conducting engineering evaluations in the Aquarius undersea research laboratory in Key Largo, Fla. The purpose of these engineering tests is to understand the equipment, techniques and test concepts that will be implemented in the October NEEMO 15 mission, to make sure that all systems are ready for more rigorous testing when the crew will be living full-time in the Aquarius undersea habitat.

The specific operations for visiting an asteroid have not been considered in great detail before. Gravity on an asteroid is negligible, so walking around on one isn't really an option. Anchoring to the surface will probably be necessary, but asteroids are made up of different materials - some solid metal, some piles of rubble and some, a combination of rock, pebbles and dust. Weak gravity and diverse materials present problems whose solutions can be experimented with on the ocean floor, which is what the NEEMO 15 mission is trying to do.

NEEMO 15 will focus on three different aspects of a mission to an asteroid surface. The first is anchoring to the surface of the asteroid. Unlike the moon or Mars, an asteroid would have little, if any, gravity to hold astronauts or vehicles to its surface, so an anchor would be necessary. To move around on the surface of an asteroid will require a method of connecting multiple anchors to form pathways. The best way in which to connect these anchors will be the second aspect of a near-Earth asteroid mission addressed by NEEMO 15. Finally, since NASA's purpose in visiting an asteroid would be for scientific research, the third aspect of this mission investigated by NEEMO 15 would be different methods of sample collection.

NASA'S Mars Atmosphere Mission

2011-05-20T03:58:00.000-07:00

NASA's mission to investigate the mystery of how Mars lost much of its atmosphere passed a critical milestone on October 4, 2010. NASA has given approval for the development and 2013 launch of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission. Clues on the Martian surface, such as features resembling dry riverbeds and minerals that only form in the presence of liquid water, suggest that Mars once had a denser atmosphere, which supported the presence of liquid water on the surface. As part of a dramatic climate change, most of the Martian atmosphere was lost. MAVEN will make definitive scientific measurements of present-day atmospheric loss that will offer insight into the Red Planet's history. This project is a vital complement to past, present, and future Mars missions. MAVEN will take us a step closer in learning about the evolution of our intriguing celestial neighbor.”

NASA Goddard will manage the project, which will cost $438 million excluding the separately government-furnished launch vehicle and telecommunications relay package. Goddard will also build some of the instruments for the mission. In addition to the PI coming from CU-LASP, the university will provide science operations, build instruments, and lead Education/Public Outreach. Lockheed Martin of Littleton, Colo., will build the spacecraft based on designs from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and 2001 Mars Odyssey missions and perform mission operations. The University of California-Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory will also build instruments for the mission. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., will provide navigation support, the Deep Space Network, and the Electra telecommunications relay hardware and operations.

NASA's Next Mars Rover Nears Completion

2011-05-19T03:31:00.000-07:00

Assembly and testing of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft is far enough along that the mission's rover, Curiosity, looks very much as it will when it is investigating Mars.

Testing continues this month at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., on the rover and other components of the spacecraft that will deliver Curiosity to Mars. In May and June, the spacecraft will be shipped to NASA Kennedy Space Center, Fla., where preparations will continue for launch in the period between Nov. 25 and Dec. 18, 2011.

The mission will use Curiosity to study one of the most intriguing places on Mars -- still to be selected from among four finalist landing-site candidates. It will study whether a selected area of Mars has offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life and for preserving evidence about whether Martian life has existed.

Nasa future mission Juno

2011-05-18T00:43:00.001-07:00

Juno’s principal goal is to understand the origin and evolution of Jupiter. Underneath its dense cloud cover, Jupiter safeguards secrets to the fundamental processes and conditions that governed our solar system during its formation. As our primary example of a giant planet, Jupiter can also provide critical knowledge for understanding the planetary systems being discovered around other stars.

With its suite of science instruments, Juno will investigate the existence of a solid planetary core, map Jupiter's intense magnetic field, measure the amount of water and ammonia in the deep atmosphere, and observe the planet's auroras.

Juno will let us take a giant step forward in our understanding of how giant planets form and the role these titans played in putting together the rest of the solar system.

Key things to know about Juno
o Spacecraft launches in August 2011
o Five-year cruise to Jupiter, arriving July 2016
o One year at Jupiter will complete the mission (orbiting the planet 32 times)
Juno will improve our understanding of our solar system’s beginnings by revealing the origin and evolution of Jupiter.

Specifically, Juno will…
o Determine how much water is in Jupiter’s atmosphere, which helps determine which planet formation theory is correct (or if new theories are needed)
o Look deep into Jupiter’s atmosphere to measure composition, temperature, cloud motions and other properties
o Map Jupiter’s magnetic and gravity fields, revealing the planet’s deep structure
o Explore and study Jupiter’s magnetosphere near the planet’s poles, especially the auroras – Jupiter’s northern and southern lights – providing new insights about how the planet’s enormous magnetic force field affects its atmosphere.

Sunset from an Astronaut's Perspective

2011-05-09T21:26:00.001-07:00

Astronauts onboard the International Space Station see the Earth from a unique perspective — for example, in one 24-hour period, they see not one sunrise and sunset, but 16 on average. Each changeover between day and night is marked by the terminator, a line on Earth's surface separating the sunlit side from the darkness.

While the terminator is often conceptualized as a hard boundary, in reality the edge of light and dark is diffuse due to the scattering of light by the Earth's atmosphere. This zone of diffuse lighting is experienced as dusk or twilight on the ground; while the Sun is no longer visible, some illumination is still present due to light scattering over the local horizon.

The terminator is visible in this panoramic view across central South America, looking towards the northeast. An astronaut shot the photo at approximately 7:37 p.m. local time. Layers of the Earth's atmosphere, colored bright white to deep blue, are visible on the horizon (or limb). The highest cloud tops have a reddish glow due to direct light from the setting sun, while lower clouds are in twilight.

China's First Space Station: A New Foothold in Earth Orbit

2011-05-06T21:05:00.000-07:00

China's state-run news outlets report that preparations of the country's first space station module, called Tiangong-1, are in full swing for a launch in the second half of this year and will be followed by an unpiloted spacecraft.

The spacecraft twosome, the station module and China's Shenzhou 8 vehicle, will mark the country's first round of orbital rendezvous and docking tests – viewed as a springboard to larger space adventures. A Long March 2F rocket is the booster of choice for the individual launches, according to reports by China's Xinhua news agency.

According to state media reports, the Tiangong-1 space station module is outfitted with a docking port on its front and rear ends. It will tip the scales at roughly 8 1/2 tons and purportedly will have a two-year lifetime in Earth orbit. Next year, China's Shenzhou 9 and Shenzhou 10 missions, each carrying astronauts, are expected to link up with the station module, according to current plan.

Space Tourist Trips Around the Moon Get Roomier Spaceship

2011-05-05T22:07:00.000-07:00

Fifty years after the first American astronaut rocketed into space, one commercial spaceflight company is hoping to push the envelope even further, with tourist trips around the moon. And now they plan to use a bigger spaceship.

The Virginia-based space tourism firm Space Adventures has brokered commercial rides to the International Space Station for the last 10 years under a partnership with Russia's Federal Space Agency, which provided the Soyuz spacecraft for the flights. The three-person Soyuz vehicle also forms the core of Space Adventures' trip for two around the moon at $150 million per passenger, but the U.S. company on may 5th announced a new twist: an extra module to give customers more room during the lunar visit.

Space Adventures already has one customer signed on for the circumlunar joyride and is in contract negotiations with a second, which means the first flight could occur as soon as the end of 2015, said the company's chairman Eric Anderson. "The mission, in my mind, will be another watershed event," Anderson said in a news briefing today. "It's remarkable that a private company will be able to work in the market and finance what is likely to be humanity's first return to the moon in what will, at that time, be 45 years."

Virgin Galactic's Space Tourist Ship Passes Major Flight Test

2011-05-04T21:45:00.000-07:00

A private spaceship built to carry space tourists on suborbital flights for the company Virgin Galactic passed a major glide test flight while flying over California's Mojave Desert on 4th may 2011: The spacecraft tested out the novel system it will use when re-entering Earth's atmosphere. Today's flight marked Virgin Galactic's seventh glide test for its first SpaceShipTwo spacecraft, called the VSS Enterprise, and took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port.

Today's flight marked Virgin Galactic's seventh glide test for its first SpaceShipTwo spacecraft, called the VSS Enterprise, and took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port. The WhiteKnightTwo/SpaceShipTwo combo serves as a launch system, the backbone of Virgin Galactic’s aspirations to create a spaceline -- one that would whisk tourists into space on a suborbital trajectory. SpaceShipTwo vehicles are designed to carry six passengers and two pilots to the edge of space and back.

The pay-per-view flights are billed as giving tourists a spectacular view of the Earth and several minutes of weightlessness. A per-seat price of $200,000 is being offered by Virgin Galactic. The space liner operations are backed by British billionaire, Sir Richard Branson, founder of the firm.

Largest 3-D Map Opens Window to the Ancient Universe

2011-05-01T20:54:00.000-07:00

The largest-ever three-dimensional map of the distant universe has been created using the light of the brightest objects in the cosmos. Since this distant light took eons to reach Earth, the map is essentially a window back in time, providing an unprecedented view of what the universe looked like 11 billion years ago.Normally, researchers make maps of the universe by looking at galaxies.

"Here, we are looking at intergalactic hydrogen gas, which blocks light," said researcher Anže Slosar, a physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory. "It's like looking at the moon through clouds -- you can see the shapes of the clouds by the moonlight that they block."

NASA's Voyager Probes to Leave Solar System

2011-04-29T21:15:00.000-07:00

It may be decades before humanity sets foot on Mars, but we're only five years away from sampling the vast stretches of interstellar space beyond our solar system for the first time, researchers say. NASA's twin unmanned Voyager spacecraft, which were launched in 1977, are streaking toward the edge of the solar system at around 37,000 mph (60,000 kph). At that rate, they'll probably pop out of our sun's sphere of influence and into interstellar space by 2016 or so, according to mission scientists.

"They are about to break free of the solar system," Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at Caltech in Pasadena, Calif., said during a media teleconference yesterday (April 28). "We are trying to get outside of our bubble, into interstellar space, to directly measure what is there.

Asteroid or Planet?

2011-04-24T21:54:00.000-07:00

Scientists still aren't sure what to make of Vesta, a small body that orbits the sun. Is it an asteroid or a planet? NASA's Dawn spacecraft could settle the matter. Vesta was spotted 200 years ago and is officially a "minor planet" — a body that orbits the sun but is not a proper planet or comet. Yet, many astronomers call Vesta an asteroid because it lies in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

But Vesta is not a typical member of that orbiting rubble patch. The vast majority of objects in the main belt are relative lightweights, 62 miles(100 kilometers) wide or smaller, compared with Vesta, which is 329 miles(530 km) wide. If Vesta is an asteroid, it would be the second-largest in the solar system. Some scientists, however, are skeptical about that designation. "I don't think Vesta should be called an asteroid," said Tom McCord, a Dawn team member at the Bear Fight Institute in Winthrop, Wash. "Not only is Vesta so much larger, but it's an evolved object, unlike most things we call asteroids."

The evolution of Vesta

The onion-like structure of Vesta (core, mantle and crust) is the key trait that makes Vesta more like planets such as Earth, Venus and Mars than the other asteroids, McCord said. Like the planets, Vesta had sufficient radioactive material inside when it formed, releasing heat that melted rock and enabled lighter layers to float to the outside. Signatures of a type of volcanic rock called basalt were detected in 1972, which meant that the body had to have melted at one time.

Mars' Thick Dry Ice Sheet Points to Planet's Wetter Past

2011-04-21T23:49:00.000-07:00

The south pole of Mars has a layer of dry ice that is 30 times thicker than previously thought, a find that suggests the Red Planet may have had more liquid water on its the surface in the distant past, scientists say. While most of the ice at the Martian south pole is frozen water, some of the ice pack is composed of dry ice — frozen carbon dioxide.

A team of scientists used a radar instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to calculate the depth of dry ice deposits. By measuring how long it took for the radar waves to travel through the ice and bounce back to the MRO spacecraft, the researchers determined the dry ice cache was nearly 2,300 feet (700 meters) thick.

"The volume of the deposit is about the volume of Lake Superior," said study leader Roger Phillips of the Southwest Research Institute.

A Galactic Rose Highlights Hubble's 21st Anniversary

2011-04-21T03:40:00.000-07:00

In celebration of the 21st anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope's deployment into space, astronomers pointed Hubble at an especially photogenic group of interacting galaxies called Arp 273.

This image, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows a group of interacting galaxies called Arp 273. The larger of the spiral galaxies, known as UGC 1810, has a disc that is tidally distorted into a rose-like shape by the gravitational pull of the companion galaxy below it, known as UGC 1813. The swathe of blue jewels across the top is the combined light from clusters of intensely bright and hot young blue stars. These massive stars glow fiercely in ultraviolet light.

The smaller, nearly edge-on companion shows distinct signs of intense star formation at its nucleus, perhaps triggered by the encounter with the companion galaxy.

Pluto's Atmosphere Found Poisonous and Surprisingly High

2011-04-19T21:55:00.000-07:00

Poisonous carbon monoxide gas has been discovered in the atmosphere of the dwarf planet Pluto, after a worldwide search that lasted nearly two decades, according to a new study that also detected the planet's atmosphere extending much higher above the surface than previously thought. A British-based team of astronomers, led by Jane Greaves of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, found a strong signal of carbon monoxide gas in Pluto's atmosphere using the 15-meter James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii.

The atmosphere of Pluto was known to extend more than 60 miles (about 100 kilometers) above the surface, the researchers said, but the new findings raise that height to more than 1,860 miles equivalent to a quarter of the distance out to Pluto's largest moon, Charon.

Greaves will present the new discovery on Wednesday (April 20) at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting in Wales. Pluto was discovered in 1930 and was considered to be the smallest and most distant planet orbiting around the sun. In 2006, its status was demoted to dwarf planet, making it one of a handful of such bodies that orbit beyond Neptune in the outer reaches of the solar system.

Why Is It So Hard to Travel to Mars?

2011-04-18T21:14:00.000-07:00

The Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters were perhaps two of the most prominent reminders of how crucial it is that everything work just right for a spacecraft to travel to space and successfully return back to Earth. Whether it was the failure of the seal used to stop hot gases from seeping through, or a piece of foam insulation that damaged the thermal protection system, scientists and engineers must make thousands of predictions of all the things that could go wrong during flight.

NASA's human Mars mission presents even more challenges of sending humans safely to a farther distance and to a more dangerous environment. Designing an aircraft that can safely enter and exit Mars' unpredictable atmosphere is a big challenge. "Each time we fly to Mars, we learn a little more and get a little smarter," said Walter Engelund of NASA's Langley Research Center. "One thing we have learned is that the Mars atmosphere is certainly a big variable. It is much more dynamic than our own Earth's atmosphere." For missions that require entry and re-entry into an atmosphere, the design of the spacecraft is typically guided by its EDL system.

Engelund, along with several other NASA colleagues, published a review of the EDL systems currently being proposed for a future manned mission to Mars in a recent book titled "The Human Mission to Mars. Colonizing the Red Planet." The book is a compilation of studies written by a team of more than 70 scientists, including four astronauts (two who walked on the moon), offering a detailed guide of how to successfully accomplish a human mission to Mars. Engelund is the lead author of the EDL study.

April's Full Moon Arrives Sunday With Easter Name

2011-04-15T22:43:00.000-07:00

Sunday (April 17) brings us the first full moon of the new spring season in the Northern Hemisphere, bringing a lunar delight named – in part – for Easter. The official moment that the moon will turn full is 10:44 p.m. EDT. Traditional names for the full moons of the year are found in some publications such as The Farmers' Almanac. The origins of these names have been traced back to native America, though they may also have evolved from old England or, as Guy Ottewell, editor of the annual publication, "Astronomical Calendar" suggests, "writer's fancy."

Traditionally, the April full moon is known as the "Pink Moon,"supposedly because the grass pink or wild ground phlox is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring. Other monikers were the Full Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon, and – among coastal tribes – the Full Fish Moon, when the shad come upstream to spawn.

New U.S. Spy Satellite Launches on Clandestine Mission

2011-04-14T23:06:00.000-07:00

A rocket carrying a new U.S. spy satellite lit up the California night sky Thursday on a secret mission for the National Reconnaissance Office. The spy satellite NROL-34 soared into orbit atop an unmanned Atlas 5 rocket after launching from a pad at the Vandenberg Air Force Base at 9:24 p.m. PDT (0424 GMT on April 15) to begin the latest classified flight for the NRO. The details of the satellite's purpose and final orbit are classified, but the new spacecraft will definitely serve a role for the U.S. military, officials said.

"This launch supports the military's national defense mission," officials with the United Launch Alliance, which orchestrated the satellite launch for the NRO, said in a mission description. Because of the satellite's secret purpose, a media blackout was put in place about 4 1/2 minutes after the Atlas 5 rocket launched toward orbit. The rocket lifted off with the help of a single solid rocket booster to propel it into space.

Why There's No Replacement for the Space Shuttle

2011-04-12T22:26:00.000-07:00

After the wheels of the space shuttle roll to a stop for the final time, NASA astronauts will have to rely on Russian spaceships for their rides into space until commercial American vehicles are ready to fly crews to orbit. A capsule-based spacecraft, called Orion, is also in development, but NASA's current plans are to use it primarily as an escape ship for the International Space Station.

Over the course of the shuttle program's 30-year career, NASA and its various partners explored a number of different vehicle options to succeed the space shuttles, but none were brought to fruition, said Roger Launius, space history curator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, in Washington.One by one, each program ended after development plans bumped up against funding and politics – an experience familiar throughout NASA's history. "There's a whole series of factors – some of them were political, but a lot of the problems were technical," Launius said. "Could they have been solved if they had more money? Probably. So, was it a technical problem or a political problem? I could argue both sides."

Is Space Tourism the New Space Race?

2011-04-12T01:46:00.000-07:00

Fifty years after the Soviet Union beat the United States to send the first human to space, a new space race is heating up. This time, the players are not nations — rather, they're commercial companies that aim to send the first paying passengers to space on private spaceships. "It's an exciting time for the industry," said George Whitesides, president of suborbital spaceship company Virgin Galactic. "I really believe that we're at the edge of an extraordinary period of innovation which will radically change our world."

If Virgin and other companies succeed, space could soon become one more conquered frontier, with rocket rides to space becoming as accessible as plane rides across the Atlantic. "We're just about to the point where low-Earth orbit really ought to be considered part of our normal regime," said Roger Launius, a space history curator at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. But while we may be nearing a tipping point where access to space expands widely beyond the select few who've left Earth to date, Launius and others caution that it's not a done deal yet.

NASA's Space Shuttles at 30

2011-04-10T21:16:00.000-07:00

NASA's space shuttle program may be coming to an end later this year, but the agency's fleet of orbiters is preparing to celebrate an important milestone next week – the 30th anniversary of the very first space shuttle flight. On April 12, 1981, the shuttle Columbia blasted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.,on the program's inaugural STS-1 mission. Thirty years later, the workhorse shuttles have played an instrumental role in constructing the International Space Station, launching critical satellites and observatories into orbit including the prolific Hubble Space Telescope and carrying numerous supplies and science experiments into space.

Over the course of his career, Wayne Hale, NASA's former space shuttle program manager, bore witness to many of these crowning achievements. Hale joined NASA in 1978 as a propulsion officer at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. He then worked as a flight director in Mission Control, presiding over 40 shuttle flights before becoming manager of the program in 2005. Hale played a critical role in the agency's recovery from the catastrophic loss in 2003 of the shuttle Columbia and its seven-astronaut crew. He now serves as Director of Human Spaceflight Programs at Special Aerospace Services, located in Boulder, Colo.

Russian Spaceship 'Gagarin' Arrives at Space Station

2011-04-06T21:42:00.000-07:00

A Russian spaceship bearing the name of history's most famous cosmonaut docked at the International Space Station late Wednesday to deliver three new crew members to the orbiting lab. The Soyuz TMA-21 — nicknamed "Gagarin" after Yuri Gagarin, who became the first person in space on April 12, 1961 — successfully docked with the station's Poisk module at 7:09 p.m. EDT (2309 GMT). The spacecraft had launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on April 4, blasting off from the same pad used for Gagarin's historic flight nearly 50 years ago. "Contact and capture — docking confirmed," a NASA official announced as the "Gagarin" sidled up to the orbiting lab. The "Gagarin" launched into space Monday (April 4 EDT) carrying two cosmonauts and one NASA astronaut to join three other crewmembers already aboard the station, rounding out the orbiting lab's Expedition 27.

The three spaceflyers — NASA's Ron Garan and Russians Alexander Samokutyaev and Andrey Borisenko — will also stay on as part of the next station mission, Expedition 28. "It was a great couple of days and we're ready to get to work," Garan said. Garan and Samokutyaev will be flight engineers on both expeditions. Borisenko will serve as a flight engineer on Expedition 27 and later serve as the commander of Expedition 28. [Vote Now! The Best Spaceships of All Time]. The crew received a flood of congratulatory calls from Russia's Mission Control center near Moscow after docking at the space station. Russian space official and the families of the astronaut and cosmonauts were on hand to wish the crew well. "We love you," Garan's wife Carmel told her husband and his crewmates after their arrival on the station. "We'll keep the fires burning at home, and we'll welcome you home with open arms at the end of your successful mission."

Company planning biggest rocket since man on moon

2011-04-05T21:53:00.000-07:00

A high-tech entrepreneur unveiled plans Tuesday to launch the world's most powerful rocket since man went to the moon. Space Exploration Technology has already sent the first private rocket and capsule into Earth's orbit as a commercial venture. It is now planning a rocket that could lift twice as much cargo into orbit as the soon-to-be-retired space shuttle. The first launch is slotted for 2013 from California with follow-up launches from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Space X's new rocket called Falcon Heavy is big enough to send cargo or even people out of Earth's orbit to the moon, an asteroid or Mars. Only the long retired Saturn V rocket that sent men to the moon was bigger. "This is a rocket of truly huge scale," said Space X president Elon Musk, who also founded PayPal and manufactures electric sports cars. The Falcon Heavy could put 117,000 pounds into the same orbit as the International Space Station. The space shuttle hauls about 54,000 pounds into orbit. The old Saturn V could carry more than 400,000 pounds of cargo.

NASA Delays Final Launch of Shuttle Endeavour to Avoid Space Traffic Jam

2011-04-04T21:10:00.000-07:00

NASA has delayed the last launch of the shuttle Endeavour toward the International Space Station by at least 10 days, to April 29, in order to avoid a space traffic jam with an unmanned Russian cargo ship, also headed for the orbiting laboratory later this month. Endeavour is now targeted to blast off on its STS-134 flight on Friday, April 29 at 3:47 p.m. EDT, NASA officials said. The decision to postpone the launch removes a scheduling conflict with a Russian Progress cargo ship, which is currently scheduled to launch April 27. The robotic Progress vehicle will arrive at the station on April 29.

Discussions between NASA and its international partners have been ongoing for weeks, Beutel said, and the decision to delay Endeavour's flight was made after several other options, including moving the Progress' launch date, were deemed impractical. "Apparently there is a biological experiment onboard the Progress that has a very short shelf life onboard that spacecraft," Beutel said. "We even looked at the possibility of putting that experiment on Endeavour, but logistically that didn't work out as well." Balancing traffic at the space station and on the ground has proved challenging for the various space station partners, but is especially crucial for NASA, in order to capitalize on the unrivaled cargo-carrying capabilities of the space shuttles. The main objective of the remaining shuttle flights is to ferry supplies to the station so that the orbiting laboratory is in a good position for the years ahead, following the retirement of the agency's shuttle fleet later this year.

NASA preparing Mars rover for launch

2011-04-04T03:30:00.000-07:00

NASA engineers are putting the finishing touches on a mega-rover to Mars before shipping it off to Florida for launch later this year. A small army of technicians dressed in protective bunny suits has been working around the clock inside a clean room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles assembling the craft, called Curiosity, and testing its science instruments. The $2.5 billion mission was supposed to launch in 2009, but problems during construction forced a two-year delay.

With launch scheduled for late November, engineers have been busy testing the spacecraft's various systems — all the while making sure that contamination from Earth doesn't accidentally hitch a ride to Mars. The nuclear-powered Curiosity — the size of a small SUV — will probe rocks and soil to determine whether the red planet ever had the right environment to support primitive life. It will carry the most high-tech instruments to the Martian surface including a laser that can zap boulders from afar. To the dismay of some space fans, Curiosity won't carry a high-resolution 3-D camera that "Avatar" director James Cameron was helping to build. NASA recently nixed it because there wasn't enough time to fully test the zoom lens before launch.

Scientists expect Curiosity to build on the discoveries of the twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which have uncovered geologic evidence of ancient water and the Phoenix lander, which found ice at its Martian north pole landing site. Curiosity's road to the launch pad has been bumpy. Engineers had to redesign the rover's heat shield and fix problems with the parachute. NASA also faced delivery delays from subcontractors that affected the launch timetable and raised the mission price tag.

NASA Test Stand Passes Review for Next-Generation Rocket Engine Testing

2011-04-01T05:34:00.000-07:00

Forty-five years after its first Saturn V rocket stage test and 35 years after its first space shuttle main engine test, the A-2 Test Stand at NASA’s John C. Stennis Space Center achieved a milestone in preparation for its third major rocket engine test project. A facility readiness review in mid-March indicated all major modifications have been completed on the historic A-2 stand to begin testing the next-generation J-2X rocket engine this summer.

The new test project comes as Stennis celebrates its 50th anniversary year. On Oct. 26, 1961, NASA publicly announced plans to build the south Mississippi facility to test the massive Saturn V rocket stages for the Apollo Program. The first test of a Saturn V second stage at Stennis was performed at the A-2 stand on April 23, 1966. Stennis engineers tested 27 first and second Saturn V rocket stages for the Apollo Program, including those used to carry humans to the moon.

Mercury Orbit Insertion

2011-03-17T06:37:00.000-07:00

After more than a dozen laps through the inner solar system, NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft will move into orbit around Mercury on March 17, 2011. The durable spacecraft--carrying seven science instruments and fortified against the blistering environs near the sun--will be the first to orbit the innermost planet.

At 8:45 p.m. EDT, MESSENGER--having pointed its largest thruster very close to the direction of travel--will fire that thruster for nearly 14 minutes, with other thrusters firing for an additional minute, slowing the spacecraft by 862 meters per second (1,929 mph) and consuming 31 percent of the propellant that the spacecraft carried at launch. Less than 9.5 percent of the usable propellant at the start of the mission will remain after completing the orbit insertion maneuver, but the spacecraft will still have plenty of propellant for future orbit correction maneuvers.

The orbit insertion will place the spacecraft into a 12-hour orbit about Mercury with a 200 kilometer (124 mile) minimum altitude. At the time of orbit insertion, MESSENGER will be 46.14 million kilometers (28.67 million miles) from the sun and 155.06 million kilometers (96.35 million miles) from Earth.

Space shuttle Discovery during its flyaround

2011-03-07T22:03:00.000-08:00

During space shuttle Discovery's final spaceflight, the STS-133 crew members delivered important spare parts to the International Space Station along with the Express Logistics Carrier-4.

Steve Bowen replaced Tim Kopra as Mission Specialist 2 following a bicycle injury on Jan. 15 that prohibited Kopra from supporting the launch window. Bowen last flew on Atlantis in May 2010 as part of the STS-132 crew. Flying on the STS-133 mission makes Bowen the first astronaut ever to fly on consecutive missions.

Crew Checks Thermal Protection System and Spacesuits

2011-02-25T05:44:00.000-08:00

The crew of space shuttle Discovery awoke at 6:54 a.m. EST to the song “Through Heaven's Eyes” by Brian Stokes Mitchell from the Prince of Egypt soundtrack, played for Mike Barratt at the request of his family.

Discovery will spend two days heading toward its rendezvous with the International Space Station. Today, the crew will perform the standard scan of the shuttle’s thermal protection system using the orbiter boom sensor system attached to the end of Discovery’s robotic arm. While the inspection is underway, Bowen, Drew and Stott will work on preparing the spacesuits onboard the shuttle that will be transferred to the station after docking and will be used during the mission’s two spacewalks.

NASA Research Team Reveals Moon Has Earth-Like Core

2011-01-07T22:05:00.000-08:00

Uncovering details about the lunar core is critical for developing accurate models of the moon's formation. The data sheds light on the evolution of a lunar dynamo -- a natural process by which our moon may have generated and maintained its own strong magnetic field.

The team's findings suggest the moon possesses a solid, iron-rich inner core with a radius of nearly 150 miles and a fluid, primarily liquid-iron outer core with a radius of roughly 205 miles. Where it differs from Earth is a partially molten boundary layer around the core estimated to have a radius of nearly 300 miles. The research indicates the core contains a small percentage of light elements such as sulfur, echoing new seismology research on Earth that suggests the presence of light elements -- such as sulfur and oxygen -- in a layer around our own core.

The researchers used extensive data gathered during the Apollo-era moon missions. The Apollo Passive Seismic Experiment consisted of four seismometers deployed between 1969 and 1972, which recorded continuous lunar seismic activity until late-1977.

"We applied tried and true methodologies from terrestrial seismology to this legacy data set to present the first-ever direct detection of the moon's core," said Renee Weber, lead researcher and space scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

Cassini Celebrates 10 Years Since Jupiter Encounter

2010-12-30T21:33:00.000-08:00

Ten years ago, on Dec. 30, 2000, NASA's Cassini spacecraft made its closest approach to Jupiter on its way to orbiting Saturn. The main purpose was to use the gravity of the largest planet in our solar system to slingshot Cassini towards Saturn, its ultimate destination. But the encounter with Jupiter, Saturn's gas-giant big brother, also gave the Cassini project a perfect lab for testing its instruments and evaluating its operations plans for its tour of the ringed planet, which began in 2004.

"The Jupiter flyby allowed the Cassini spacecraft to stretch its wings, rehearsing for its prime time show, orbiting Saturn," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Ten years later, findings from the Jupiter flyby still continue to shape our understanding of similar processes in the Saturn system."

Cassini spent about six months - from October 2000 to March 2001 - exploring the Jupiter system. The closest approach brought Cassini to within about 9.7 million kilometers (6 million miles) of Jupiter's cloud tops at 2:05 a.m. Pacific Time, or 10:05 a.m. UTC, on Dec. 30, 2000.

Cassini captured some 26,000 images of Jupiter and its moons over six months of continual viewing, creating the most detailed global portrait of Jupiter yet.

Scans of Discovery's External Tank Progressing Well

2010-12-29T05:57:00.000-08:00

Technicians in the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida are making good progress with X-ray type image scans of space shuttle Discovery's external fuel tank.

By Tuesday evening, they'll be more than half way done with the computed radiography scans of all 108 support beams, called stringers, on the outside of the external tank’s intertank section.

Engineers at various other NASA locations already are analyzing the new image scans, which began Sunday. The new data, along with previous testing and analysis, will help engineers and managers determine what caused small cracks on the tops of two stringers during Discovery’s launch countdown on Nov. 5.‬

‪‬Technicians expect to complete their scans by Thursday (Dec. 30) when Space Shuttle Program managers are set to decide whether testing and analysis indicate modifications are needed on some of the stringers.

Christmas at the Moon

2010-12-22T21:41:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve, 1968. As one of the most turbulent, tragic years in American history drew to a close, millions around the world were watching and listening as the Apollo 8 astronauts -- Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders -- became the first humans to orbit another world.

As their command module floated above the lunar surface, the astronauts beamed back images of the moon and Earth and took turns reading from the book of Genesis, closing with a wish for everyone "on the good Earth."

Christmas Eve, 1968. As one of the most turbulent, tragic years in American history drew to a close, millions around the world were watching and listening as the Apollo 8 astronauts -- Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders -- became the first humans to orbit another world.

As their command module floated above the lunar surface, the astronauts beamed back images of the moon and Earth and took turns reading from the book of Genesis, closing with a wish for everyone "on the good Earth."

Total Lunar Eclipse

2010-12-21T04:00:00.000-08:00

Early in the morning on December 21 a total lunar eclipse will be visible to sky watchers across North America (for observers in western states the eclipse actually begins late in the evening of December 20), Greenland and Iceland. Viewers in Western Europe will be able to see the beginning stages of the eclipse before moonset, and in western Asia the later stages of the eclipse will be visible after moonrise.

From beginning to end, the eclipse will last about three hours and twenty-eight minutes. For observers on the east coast of the U.S. the eclipse lasts from 1:33am EST through 5:01 a.m. EST. Viewers on the west coast will be able to tune in a bit earlier. For them the eclipse begins at 10:33 p.m. PST on December 20 and lasts until 2:01am PST on Dec. 21. Totality, the time when Earth's shadow completely covers the moon, will last a lengthy 72 minutes.

NASA Probe Sees Solar Wind Decline

2010-12-16T01:04:00.000-08:00

The 33-year odyssey of NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached a distant point at the edge of our solar system where there is no outward motion of solar wind.

Now hurtling toward interstellar space some 17.4 billion kilometers (10.8 billion miles) from the sun, Voyager 1 has crossed into an area where the velocity of the hot ionized gas, or plasma, emanating directly outward from the sun has slowed to zero. Scientists suspect the solar wind has been turned sideways by the pressure from the interstellar wind in the region between stars.

The event is a major milestone in Voyager 1's passage through the heliosheath, the turbulent outer shell of the sun's sphere of influence, and the spacecraft's upcoming departure from our solar system.

"The solar wind has turned the corner," said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. "Voyager 1 is getting close to interstellar space."

Explosion of Infrared Light

2010-12-10T01:00:00.000-08:00

A circular rainbow appears like a halo around an exploded star in this new view of the IC 443 nebula from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE.

When massive stars die, they explode in tremendous blasts, called supernovae, which send out shock waves. The shock waves sweep up and heat surrounding gas and dust, creating supernova remnants like the one pictured here. The supernova in IC 443 happened somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago.

In this WISE image, infrared light has been color-coded to reveal what our eyes cannot see. The colors differ primarily because materials surrounding the supernova remnant vary in density. When the shock waves hit these materials, different gases were triggered to release a mix of infrared wavelengths.

the Falcon 9 Merlin 1C engines

2010-12-06T22:05:00.000-08:00

The first SpaceX Falcon 9 demonstration launch for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program is targeted for liftoff on Tuesday, Dec. 7. Liftoff will occur from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The launch window extends from 9:03 a.m. to 12:22 p.m. EST. If necessary, launch opportunities also are available on Dec. 8 and Dec. 9 with the same window.

Known as COTS 1, the launch is the first flight of the Dragon spacecraft and the first commercial attempt to re-enter a spacecraft from orbit. This is the first of three test launches currently planned in the Falcon 9 test flight series. It is intended as a demonstration mission to prove key capabilities such as launch, structural integrity of the Dragon spacecraft, on-orbit operation, re-entry, descent and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

NASA established the COTS program to procure a commercial launch service to stimulate the commercial space industry, to facilitate a private industry cargo capability to the International Space Station as soon as achievable, and to achieve cost-effective access to low Earth orbit that will attract private customers.

Shuttle Managers Continue Tank Repair Analysis

2010-12-03T01:37:00.000-08:00

NASA space shuttle managers met today at a Program Requirements Control Board (PRCB) to review repairs and engineering evaluations associated with shuttle Discovery and cracks on two 21-foot-long, U-shaped aluminum brackets, called stringers, on the shuttle's external tank. NASA will continue to review and analyze the data before setting a launch date. NASA managers are meeting daily to assess the data and progress being made.

Technicians at Kennedy’s Launch Pad 39A will continue to collect data on the stringer repair by performing backscatter scans, which bounces radiation off space shuttle Discovery’s external fuel tank, through the weekend.

Inspections Complete on Repaired Tank Stringers

2010-11-24T04:27:00.000-08:00

Teams have completed final inspections on the stringer repair work on space shuttle Discovery's external fuel tank at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The environmental enclosure, built to support foaming operations, was removed. Flight Crew Systems middeck stow operations are under way.

The Space Shuttle Program will review the analysis and repairs that are required to safely launch shuttle Discovery on its STS-133 mission at a special Program Requirements Control Board session Wednesday. Pending a successful review of the flight rationale at that meeting, a Launch Status Briefing would be held with senior NASA management on Monday, Nov. 29 at Kennedy.

Kennedy's “Call-to-Stations” to begin the launch countdown will be no earlier than Nov. 30, supporting a first launch attempt no earlier than Dec. 3 at about 2:52 a.m. EST.

Space Shuttle STS-133

2010-11-10T03:42:00.001-08:00

During space shuttle Discovery's final spaceflight, the STS-133 crew members will take important spare parts to the International Space Station along with the Express Logistics Carrier-4. Discovery has been moved to Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.